^**^***«^^^^ttiAi 


^^ 


MmSG^ 


PRIVATE    LIBRARY 

OF        >^'^         / 
CHARLES  A.  KOTOID. 


GIFT  OF 


^ 


THE 


Choice  of  Books 


A 

K-^^ 


BY 


CHARLES    F.    RICHARDSON 


NEW  YOKE: 

JOHN  B.  ALDEN,  PUBLISHEB, 

1883. 


^v 


^^ 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

The  Motive  op  Reading 7 

The  Reading  Habit 12 

What  Books  to  Read 27 

The  Best  Time  to  Read 45 

How  Much  to  Read , 57 

Remembering  What  One  Reads 76 

The  Use  o^  Note-Books 85 

The  Cultivation  of  Taste 95 

Poetry no 

The  Art  of  SiarpiNG 121 

The  Use  of  Translations 129 

How  TO  Read  Periodicals 138 

Reading  Aloud  and  Reading  Clubs 149 

What  Books  to  Own 163 

The  Use  of  Public  Libraries 182 

The  True  Service  op  Reading 195 


247481 

(3> 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.archive.org/details/choiceofbooksOOrichrich 


QUOTATIONS  FROM  AUTHORS  CITED. 


PAGE 

Abbott 167 

About 169 

Adams 188 

Addison 198 

Alcott 124 

Allibone 23 

Aristotle 112 

Arnold.  , 34,  113 

Atkinson.  .58,  90,  99, 112, 140 
Bacon..  .  .60,  99, 112,  122,  125 

Baxter 200 

Beecher 57,  88, 163 

Bible,  the 7.  99,  i54 

Blackwood's  Magazine.     79 

BoARDiiAN 178 

Boswell - 173 

Eraitiiwaite 49,  60 

Bulwer 96 

Burns 10 

Butler 35 

Carlyle. 29,  197 

Cato 202 

Channing 25 

Chaucer 167 

Christian  Union  155 

•( 


PAGE 

Clarke 201 

Coleridge 60,  201 

CoLLYER - 19 

CONGDON 1 70 

cowper ii 

Cutter 187 

De  Quincey 32 

Disraeli 8 

Durfee 92 

Emerson..  .  .27,  102, 127,  130, 
177,  202 

Fenelon 26 

Fuller 90 

Gibbon 26,  1 73 

GoscHEN 114 

Hale 18,  66,  160,  190 

Hamerton.  47,  51,  54,  79, 126, 
131,  138,  144 

Harrison 35,  37,  39,  61 

Helps 168 

Herrick 199 

Herschel 24 

Holmes 168 

Homes 191 

Hovey 87 

5) 


</•  \ 


Quotations  fi^ofn^ 'Authors  Cited, 


PAGE 

Hugo 103 

Jacquemont 51 

Johnson 46, 173,  178 

Keats 196 

Lamb  ..   175 

Langfojid 174,  202 

Library  Journal 189, 191 

Literary  World 67, 100 

Locke 58 

Lowell 202 

Luther 69 

Lyly 201 

McCosn 8 

Milton 9, 62, 199,  202 

Newman 82 

Pattison 73 

Payn  106 

Pendleton 191 

Perkins 10,  140 

Petrarch 23, 61 

Porter.... 77,  78,98,  no,  113, 
142, 195 


PAGE 

Potter 10,  68, 98,  149 

Quick 73 

Reed 88 

RusKiN  .^ 17,  29,  i6g 

Saturday  Review 119 

Schopenhauer 63 

Scudder 145 

SCHAIRP 116 

Shakespeare 28 

Shelley 112 

SiMcox 17 

Spencer 13,  70 

Spenser 199 

Stedman 12 

Stewart 58 

Thoreau 29 

Waller 24 

Ware 47 

Whately 125 

White 149 

Wyttenbach 46 


THE  CHOICE  OF  BOOKS. 


THE  MOTIVE  OF  READING. 

"  Of  making  many  books  there  is  no  end,"  said 
the  wisest  of  men  three  thousand  years  ago ;  and 
he  added  the  equally  true  statement  that  "  much 
study  " — that  is,  much  reading — *•  is  a  weariness 
of  the  flesh."  A  fourteenth  century  commenta- 
tor, in  considering  this  text,  drew  the  conclusion 
that  no  books  may  rightly  be  read  save  "the 
bokis  of  hooli  scripture,"  and  "  other  bokis,  that, 
ben  nedeful  to  the  understonding  of  hooli  script- 
ure." Modern  readers,  reared  outside  the  close 
atmosphere  of  mediaeval  cloisters,  are  of  course 
not  so  narrow  in  their  interpretation  of  this  text ; 
but  all  will  agree  that  a  wise  choice  must  be 
made  from  the  great  stores  of  literature  that  the 
ages  have  accumulated,  from  the  days  of  papyrus 
scrolls  and  birch-bark  writings,  to  these  times, 
when  scarcely  any  country  town  is  without  its 


8  The  Choice  of  Books, 

printing-press.  ''We  are  now,"  says  Disraeli, 
''  in  want  of  an  art  to  teach  how  books  are  to  be 
read,  rather,  than  to  read  them ;  such  an  art  is 
'practicable." 

The  very  first  thing  to  be  remembered  by  h;m 
who  would  study  the  art  of  reading  is  that  noth- 
ing can  take  the  place  of  personal  enthusiasm 
and  personal  work.  However  wise  may  be  the 
friendly  adviser,  and  however  full  and  perfect 
the  chosen  hand-book  of  reading,  neither  can  do 
more  than  to  stimulate  and  suggest.  Notning 
can  take  the  place  of  a  direct  famiharity  with 
books  themselves.  To  know  one  good  book  well, 
is  better  than  to  know  something  about  a  hun- 
dred good  books,  at  second  hand.  The  taste  for 
reading  and  the  habit  of  reading  must  always  be 
developed  from  within  ;  they  can  never  be  given 
from  without. 

!  All  plans  and  systems  of  reading,  therefore, 
should  be  taken,  as  far  as  possible,  into  one  s 
heart  of  hearts,  and  be  made  a  part  of  his  OAvn 
mind  and  thought.  Unless  this  can  be  done,  they 
are  worse  than  useless.  Dr.  McCosh  says :  "  The 
book  to  read  is  not  the  one  that  thinks  for  you, 
but  the  one  which  makes  you  think."  It  is  plain, 
then,  that  a  "  course  of  reading  "  may  be  a  great 


The  Motive  of  Reading,  9 

good  or  a  great  evil,  according  to  its  use.  The 
late  Bishop  Alonzo  Potter,  one  of  the  most  judi- 
cious of  literary  helpers,  offered  to  readers  this 
sound  piece  of  advice :  "  Do  not  be  so  enslaved 
by  any  system  or  course  of  study,  as  to  think  it 
may  not  be  altered."  However  conscious  one 
may  be  of  his  own  deficiencies,  and  however  he 
may  feel  the  need  of  outside  aid,  he  should  never 
permit  his  own  independence  and  self-respect  to 
be  obliterated.  "  He  who  reads  incessantly," 
says  Milton, 

"And  to  his  reading  brings  not 
A  spirit  and  judgment  equal  or  superior, 
Uncertain  and  unsettled  still  remains, 
Deep  versed  in  books,  but  shallow  in  himself." 

The  general  agreement  of  intelHgent  people 
as  to  the  merit  of  an  author  or  the  worth  of  a 
book,  is,  of  course,  to  be  accepted  until  one  finds 
some  valid  reason  for  reversing  it.  But  nothing' 
is  to  be  gained  by  pretending  to  like  what  one 
really  dishkes,  or  to  enjoy  what  one  does  not 
find  profitable,  or  even  intelligible.  If  a  reader 
is  not  honest  and  sincere  in  this  matter,  there  is 
small  hope  for  him.  The  lowest  taste  may  be 
cultivated  and  improved,  and  radically  changed  } 
but   pretense  and  artificiality  can  never  grow 


lo  The  Choice  of  Books, 

into  anything  better.  They  must  be  wholly 
rooted  out  at  the  start.  If  you  dislike  Shake- 
speare's "  Hamlet,"  and  greatly  enjoy  a  trashy 
story,  say  so  with  sincerity  and  sorrow,  if  occa- 
sion requires,  and  hope  and  work  for  a  reversal 
of  your  taste.  "  It's  guid  to  be  honest  and  true," 
says  Burns,  and  nowhere  is  honesty  more  needed 
than  here. 

It  should  always  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
busiest  reader  must  leave  unread  all  but  a  mere 
fraction  of  the  good  books  in  the  world.  "  Be 
not  alarmed  because  so  many  books  are  recom- 
mended," says  Bishop  Potter ;  ''  and  do  not  at- 
tempt to  read  much  or  fast ;"  but  "  dare  to  be  ig- 
norant of  many  things."  Therearenow  1,100,000 
printed  books  in  the  library  of  the  British  Mu- 
seum alone  ;  and  the  library  of  the  BibHotheque 
Nationale  of  Paris  contains  more  than  3,000,000 
volumes.  An  experienced  librarian  has  esti- 
mated that  not  less  than  25,000  new  books  now 
appear  annually  ;  and  yet  the  reading  of  a  book 
a  fortnight,  or  say  twenty-five  books  a  year,  is 
quite  as  much  as  the  average  reader  can  possi- 
bly achieve — a  rate  at  which  only  1,250  books 
could  be  read  in  half  a  century.  Since  this  is 
so,  he  must  be  very  thoughtless  and  very  timid 


The  Motive  of  Reading,  1 1 

who  feels  any  shame  in  confessing  that  he  is 
wholly  ignorant  of  a  great  many  books;  and  on 
the  other  hand,  none  but  a  very  superficial  and 
conceited  reader  will  venture  to  express  surprise 
at  the  deficiencies  of  others,  when  a  little  thought 
would  make  his  own  so  clearly  manifest.  In 
Cowper's  words : 

Knowledge  is  proud  that  he  has  learned  so  much  ; 
Wisdom  is  humble  that  he  knows  no  more. 


t2  The  Choice  of  Books, 


THE  READING  HABIT. 

There  are  some  persons  who  are  so  fortunate 
.as  to  be  unable  to  tell  when  they  formed  the 
habit  of  reading  ;  who  find  it  a  constant  and  ever 
increasing  advantage  and  pleasure,  their  whole 
lives  long  ;  and  who  will  not  lay  it  down  so  long 
as  they  live.  There  are  men  and  women  in  the 
world  whose  youth  and  whose  old  age  are  so 
bound  up  in  the  reading  habit  that,  if  questioned 
as  to  its  first  inception  and  probable  end,  they 
could  only  reply,  like  Dimple-chin  and  Grizzled- 
face,  in  Mr.  Stedman's  pretty  poem  of  "  Toujours 
Amour : "  "  Ask  some  }- ounger  lass  than  I  ; " 
"  Ask  some  older  sage  than  I."  Happy  are  those 
whose  early  surroundings  thus  permit  them  to 
form  the  reading  habit  unconsciously ;  whose 
parents  and  friends  surround  them  with  good 
books  and  periodicals ;  and  whose  time  is  so  ap- 
portioned, in  childhood  and  youth,  as  to  permit 
them  to  give  a  fair  share  of  it  to  reading,  as  wxli 
as  to  study  in  school,  on  the  one  hand,  and  phj^s- 
ical  labor,  on  the  other.     It  is  plain  that  a  great 


The  Reading  Habit,  13 

duty  and  responsibility  thus  rests  upon  the  par- 
ents and  guardians  and  teachers  of  the  young, 
at  the  very  outset.  It  is  theirs  to  furnish  the 
books,  and  to  stimulate  and  suggest,  in  every 
wise  way,  the  best  methods  of  reading. 

Just  where,  in  this  early  formation  of  the  read- 
ing habit,  absolute  direction  should  end  and  ad- 
vice begin,  is  a  matter  which  the  individual 
parent  or  guardian  must  decide  for  himself,  in 
large  measure.  Perhaps  there  is  greater  danger 
of  too  much  direction  than  of  too  much  sugges- 
tion. It  is  well  to  give  the  young  reader,  in 
great  part,  the  privilege  of  forming  his  own  plans 
and  making  his  own  choice.  Of  this  promotion 
of  self-development  Herbert  Spencer  says :  "  In 
education  the  process  of  self-development  should 
be  encouraged  to  the  fullest  extent.  Children 
should  be  led  to  make  their  own  investigations, 
and  to  draw  their  own  inferences.  They  should 
be  told  as  little  as  possible,  and  induced  to  dis- 
cover  as  much  as  possible.  Humanity  has  pro- 
gressed solely  by  self-instruction  :  and  that  to 
achieve  the  best  results  each  mind  must  progress 
somewhat  after  the  same  fashion,  is  continually 
proved  by  the  marked  success  of  self-made  men. 
Those  who  have  been   brought  up  under  the 


14  The  Choice  of  Books, 

ordinary  school-drill,  and  have  carried  away  with 
them  the  idea  that  education  is  practicable  only 
in  that  style,  will  think  it  hopeless  to  make  chil- 
dren their  own  teachers.  If,  however,  they  will 
call  to  mind  that  the  all-important  knowledge  of 
surrounding  objects  which  a  child  gets  in  its 
early  years  is  got  without  help,  if  they  will  re- 
member that  the  child  is  self-taught  in  the  use 
of  its  mother's  tongue ;  if  they  will  estimate  the 
amount  of  that  experience  of  life,  that  out-of- 
school  wisdom  which  every  boy  gathers  for 
himself;  if  they  will  mark  the  unusual  intelli- 
gence of  the  uncared  for  London  gamin,  as  shown 
in  all  directions  in  which  his  faculties  have  been 
tasked ;  if,  further,  they  will  think  how  many 
minds  have  struggled  up-  unaided,  not  only 
through  the  mysteries  of  our  irrationally-plan- 
ned curriculum,  but  through  hosts  of  other  obsta- 
cles besides,  they  will  find  it  a  not  unreasonable 
conclusion,  that  if  the  subjects  be  put  before  him 
in  right  order  and  right  form,  any  pupil  of  ordi- 
nary capacity  will  surmount  his  successive  diffi- 
culties with  but  little  assistance.  Who  indeed 
can  watch  the  ceaseless  observation  and  inquiry 
and  inference  going  on  in  a  child's  mind,  or  listen 
to  its  acute  remarks  on  matters  within  the  range 


The  Reading  Habit.  iS 

of  its  faculties,  without  perceiving  that  these 
powers  which  it  manifests,  if  brought  to  bear 
systematically  upon  anj^  studies  within  the  same 
range,  would  readily  master  them  without  help  ? 
This  need  for  perpetual  telling  is  the  result  of, 
our  stupidity,  not  of  the  child's.  We  drag  it' 
away  from  the  facts  in  which  it  is  interested,  and 
which  it  is  actively  assimilating  of  itself ;  we  put 
before  it  facts  far  too  complex  for  it  to  under- 
stand, and  therefore  distasteful  to  it ;  finding  that 
it  will  not  voluntarily  acquire  these  facts,  we 
thrust  them  into  his  mind  by  force  of  threats 
and  punishment ;  by  thus  denying  the  knowledge 
it  craves,  and  cramming  it  with  knowledge  it 
cannot  digest,  we  produce  a  morbid  state  of  its 
faculties,  and  a  consequent  disgust  for  knowledge 
in  general ;  and  when  as  a  result  partly  of  the 
stolid  indifference  we  have  brought  on,  and 
partly  of  still  continued  unfitness  in  its  studies, 
the  child  can  understand  nothing  without  expla- 
nation, and  becomes  a  mere  passive  recipient  of 
our  instruction,  we  infer  that  education  must 
necessarily  be  carried  on  thus.  Having  by  our 
method  induced  helplessness,  we  straightway 
make  the  helplessness  a  reason  for  our  method." 
After  making  all  needed  deductions  from  the 


1 6  The  Choice  of  Books, 

somewhat  impatient  spirit  in  which  Mr.  Spencer 
here  speaks,  it  can  hardly  be  questioned  that  the 
young  reader — and  most  of  these  suggestions 
apply  equally  well  to  those  who  begin  to  read 
later  in  life — will  do  much  for  himself ;  and  that, 
on  the  whole,  he  stands  in  greater  need  of  a  judi- 
cious guide  and  helper  than  of  a  rigorous  ruler 
and  taskmaster.  Of  course,  if  he  lacks  both  guid^ ' 
ance  and  government,  the  latter  is  better  than 
nothing;  and  there  are  times  when  only  stern 
commandment  will  avail.  But  the  rule  should 
be  made  in  accordance  with  the  large  purpose 
of  helpfulness.  The  reading  habit  is  a  growthj 
a  development,  not  a  creation  ;  and  all  measures 
for  its  cultivation,  whether  from  without  or  with- 
in, should  be  made  with  this  fact  in  mind.  And 
where  strict  and  even  stern  regulation  is  neces. 
sary,  the  direction  will  be  most  profitable  that 
best  succeeds  in  causing  itself  to  be  assimilated 
in  the  mind  of  the  governed,  as  a  part  of  that 
mind,  and  not  as  a  foreign  addition. 

Whether  the  reader,  thus  helped  by  wise  coun- 
selors, be  young  or  old,  he  should  soon  become 
familiar  with  the  advantage  of  making  his  read- 
ing a  part  of  his  daily  life.  Miss  Edith  Simcox, 
one  of  the  wisest  of  living  Englishwomen,  thus 


The  Readino;  Habit,  17 


•cb 


presses  this  point  :  "  No  part  of  a  child's  school 
knowledge  can  be  safely  allowed  to  remain  long 
detached  from  its  daily  life.  The  history  and 
geography  of  lesson  books  must  join  on  to  that 
of  the  newspapers ;  it  is  almost  worse  to  know 
the  name  and  date  of  a  writer  or  a  hero,  without 
an  independent  famiharity  with  the  nature  of 
his  books  or  actions,  than  to  be  frankly  ignorant 
of  all  at  once ;  and  in  every  branch  of  science  it 
is  admitted  that  a  knowledge  of  definitions  and 
formulas  is  useless  apart  from  experimental  ac- 
quaintance with  the  actual  bodies  described. 
An  inaccurate  general  knowledge,  that  would 
not  stand  the  test  of  examination,  may  even  in 
some  cases  have  more  educational  value  than  a 
few  correct  and  barren  facts;  and  our  educa- 
tional results  will  not  be  thoroughly  satisfactory 
if  detailed  information  is  imparted  faster  than 
circumstantial  impressions  about  its  color  and 
bearing." 

Mr.  Ruskin,  too,  has  recently  spoken  of  the 
duty  of  brightening  the  beginnings  of  education, 
and  of  the  evils  of  cramming,  against  which,  hap- 
pily, the  tide  of  the  best  contemporary  thought 
is  now  setting  strongly, — never  to  ebb,  let  us 
hope.     "  Make  your  children,"  he  says,  "  happy 


1 8    '  The  Choice  of  Books, 

in  their  youth ;  let  distinction  come  to  them,  if 
it  will,  after  well  spent  and  well-remembered 
years ;  but  let  them  now  break  and  eat  the  bread 
of  Heaven  with  gladness  and  singleness  of  heart, 
and  send  portions  to  them,  for  whom  nothing  is 
prepared ;  and  so  Heaven  send  you  its  grace, 
before  meat,  and  after  it."  Of  the  necessity  of 
making  attractive  the  beginnings  of  reading, 
Edward  Everett  Hale  says :  "  In  the  first  place, 
we  must  make  this  business  agreeable.  Which- 
ever avenue  we  take  into  the  maze  must  be  one 
of  the  pleasant  avenues,  or  else,  in  a  world  which 
the  good  God  has  made  very  beautiful,  the 
young  people  will  go  a-skating,  or  a-fishing,  or 
a-swimming,  or  a-voy aging,  and  not  a-reading, 
and  no  blame  to  them."  How  much  can  be 
done  by  others  in  making  the  literary  path  pleas- 
ant, is  known  to  the  full  by  those  whose  first 
steps  were  guided  therein  by  a  wise  father,  or 
mother,  or  teacher,  or  friend.  How  strongly  the 
/  lack  of  the  helpful  hand  is  felt,  none  who  have 
missed  it  will  need  to  be  told. 

But  those  who  must  be  their  own  helpers  need 
not  be  one  whit  discouraged.  The  history  of 
the  world  is  full  of  bright  examples  of  the  value 
of  self-training,  as  shown  by  the  subsequent  sue- 


The  Reading  Habit,  19 

cess  won  as  readers,  and  writers,  and  workers  in 
every  department  of  life,  by  those  who  appar- 
ently lacked  both  books  to  read  and  time  to  read 
them,  or  even  the  candle  wherewith  to  light  the 
printed  page.  It  would  be  easy  to  fill  this  whole 
series  of  chapters  with  accounts  of  the  way  in 
which  the  readmg  habit  has  been  acquired  and 
followed  in  the  face  of  every  obstacle.  But  a 
single  bit  of  personal  reminiscence  may  be  taken 
as  the  type  of  thousands ;  not  only  because  of  its 
touching  beauty  and  its  telling  force,  but  because 
it  is  the  latest  to  be  told.  To-morrow  some 
other  man  of  eminence  will  add  no  less  strong 
testimony  to  the  possibility  of  self-education.  It 
is  the  story  told  by  Robert  Collyer,  who  worked 
his  way  from  the  anvil  in  a  little  English  town, 
up  to  a  commanding  position  among  American 
preachers  and  writers.  "  Do  you  want  to  know," 
he  asked,  "  how  I  manage  to  talk  to  you  in  this 
simple  Saxon  ?  I  will  tell  you.  I  read  Bunyan, 
Crusoe,  and  Goldsmith  when  I  was  a  boy,  morn- 
ing, noon,  and  night.  All  the  rest  was  task 
work ;  these  were  my  delight,  with  the  stories  in 
the  Bible,  and  with  Shakespeare,  when  at  last 
the  mighty  master  came  within  our  doors.  The 
rest  were  as  senna  to  me.     These  were  like  a 


20  The  Choice  of  Books. 


V 


well  of  pure  water,  and  this  is  the  first  step  I 
seem  to  have  taken  of  my  own  free  will  toward 

the  pulpit I  took  to  these  as  I  took  to 

milk,  and,  without  the  least  idea  what  I  was  do- 
ling, got  the  taste  for  simple  words  into  the  very 
'fiber  of  my  nature.  There  was  day-school  for 
me  until  I  was  eight  years  old,  and  then  I  had  to 

turn  in  and  work  thirteen  hours  a  day 

From  the  days  when  we  used  to  spell  out  Crusoe 
and  old  Bunyan  there  had  grown  up  in  me  a  de- 
vouring hunger  to  read  books.  It  made  small 
matter  what  they  were,  so  they  were  books. 
Half  a  volume  of  an  old  encyclopsedia  came 
along — the  first  I  had  ever  seen.  How  many 
times  I  went  through  that  I  cannot  even  guess. 
I  remember  that  I  read  some  old  reports  of  the 
Missionary  Society  with  the  greatest  delight. 
There  were  chapters  in  them  about  China  and 
Labrador.  Yet  I  think  it  is  in  reading,  as  it  is  in 
eating,  when  the  first  hunger  is  over  you  begin 
to  be  a  little  critical,  and  will  by  no  means  take 
to  garbage  if  you  are  of  a  wholesome  nature. 
And  I  remember  this  because  it  touches  this 
beautiful  valley  of  the  Hudson.  I  could  not  go 
home  for  the  Christmas  of  1839,  ^^^^  ^^^s  feeling 
very  sad  about  it  all,  for  I  was  only  a  boy ;  and 


The  Reading  Habit,  21 

sitting  by  the  fire,  an  old  farmer  came  In  and 
said:  'I  notice  thou's  fond  o*  reading-,  so  I 
brought  thee  summat  to  read.'  It  was  Irving's 
*  Sketch  Book.'  I  had  never  heard  of  the  work. 
I  went  at  it,  and  was  '  as  them  that  dream.'  No 
such  dehght  had  touched  me  since  the  old  days 
of  Crusoe.  I  saw  the  Hudson  and  the  Catskills, 
took  poor  Rip  at  once  into  m}^  heart,  as  every- 
body has,  pitied  Ichabod  while  I  laughed  at  him, 
thought  the  old  Dutch  feast  a  most  admirable 
thing,  and  long  before  I  was  through,  all  regret 
at  my  lost  Christmas  had  gone  down  the  wind, 
and  I  had  found  out  there  are  books  and  books. 
That  vast  hunger  to  read  never  left  me.  If  there 
was  no  candle,  I  poked  my  head  down  to  the 
fire ;  read  while  I  was  eating,  blowing  the  bel- 
lows, or  walking  from  one  place  to  another.  I 
could  read  and  walk  four  miles  an  hour.  The 
world  centered  in  books.  There  was  no  thought 
in  my  mind  of  any  good  to  come  out  of  it ;  the 
good  lay  in  the  reading.  I  had  no  more  idea  of 
being  a  minister  than  j^ou  elder  men  who  were 
boys  then,  in  this  town,  had  that  I  should  be  here 
to-night  to  tell  this  story.  Now,  give  a  boy  a 
passion  like  this  for  anything,  books  or  business, 
painting  or  farming,  mechanism   or  music,  and 


22  The  Choice  of  Books, 

you  give  him  thereby  a  lever  to  lift  his  world, 
and  a  patent  of  nobility,  if  the  thing  he  does  is 
noble.  There  were  two  or  three  of  my  mind 
about  books.  We  became  companions,  and  gave 
the  roughs  a  wide  berth.  The  books  did  their 
work,  too,  about  that  drink,  and  fought  the  devil 
with  a  finer  fire.  I  remember  while  I  was  yet  a 
lad  reading  Macaulay's  great  essay  on  Bacon, 
and  1  could  grasp  its  wonderful  beauty.  There 
has  been  no  time  when  I  have  not  felt  sad  that 
there  should  have  been  no  chance  for  me  at  a 
good  education  and  training.  I  miss  it  every 
day,  but  such  chances  as  were  left  lay  in  thai 
everlasting  hunger  to  still  be  reading.  I  was 
tough  as  leather,  and  could  do  the  double  stints 
and  so  it  was  that,  all  unknown  to  myself,  I  was 
as  one  that  soweth  good  seed  in  his  field." 

With  young  or  old,  there  is  no  such  helpei 
toward  the  reading  habit  as  the  cultivation  oi 
this  warm  and  undying  feeling  of  the  friendli, 
ness  of  books, — in  which  subject  Frederick  Deni. 
son  Maurice  found  enough  to  write  a  whoLe 
book.  If  a  parent  or  other  guide  seems  but  a 
task-master ;  if  his  rules  are  those  of  a  statute- 
book,  and  his  society  like  that  of  an  officer  of  the 
law,  there  is  small  hope  that  his  help  can  be  made 


The  Reading  Habit,  23 

either  serviceable  or  profitable.     But  with   the 
growth  of  the  friendly  feeling  comes  a  state  of 
mind  which  renders  all  things  possible.     When 
one  book  has  become  a  friend  and  fellow,  the 
world  has  grown  that  much  broader  and  more 
beautiful.     Petrarch  said  of  his  books,  considered 
as  his  friends  (I  borrow  the  translation  from  the 
excellent  treasure-house  of  quotations  on  books 
and   reading,  prefixed  by    Dr.  AUibone   to   his 
*'  Dictionary   of    Authors  ") :    "  I    have  .  friends, 
whose   society  is  extremely  agreeable   to  me ; 
they  are  of  all  ages,  and  of  every  country.     They 
have  distinguished  themselves 'both  in  the  cabi- 
net and  in  the  field,  and  obtained  high  honors 
for  their  knowledge  of  the  sciences.     It  is  easy 
to  gain  access  to  them,  for  they  are  always  at 
my  service,  and  I  admit  them  to  my  company, 
and   dismiss   them  from  it,  whenever  I   please. 
They  are  never  troublesome,  but  immediately 
answer  every  question  I  ask  them.     Some  relate 
to  me  the  events  of  the  past  ages,  while  others 
reveal  to  me  the  secrets  of  nature.     Some  teach 
me  how  to  live,  and  others  how  to  die.     Some, 
by  their  vivacity,  drive  away  my  cares  and  ex- 
hilarate my  spirits,  while  others  give  fortitude  to 
my  mind,  and  teach  me  the  important  lesson  how 


24  The  Choice  of  Books. 

to  restrain  my  desires,  and  to  depend  wholly  on 
myself.  They  open  to  me,  in  short,  the  various 
avenues  of  all  the  arts  and  sciences,  and  upon 
their  information  I  safely  rely  in  all  emergencies." 
''  In  my  study,"  quaintly  said  Sir  Wilham  Waller, 
''  I  am  sure  to  converse  with  none  but  wise  men  ; 
but  abroad  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  avoid  the 
society  of  fools."  Sir  John  Herschel  called 
books  "  the  best  society  in  every  period  of  his- 
tory :"  "  Were  I  to  pray  for  a  taste  which  should 
stand  me  in  stead  under  every  variety  of  circum- 
stances, and  be  a  source  of  happiness  and  cheer- 
fulness to  me  during  life,  and  a  shield  against  its 
ills,  however  things  might  go  amiss,  and  the 
world  frown  upon  me,  it  would  be  a  taste  for 
reading.  Give  a  man  this  taste,  and  the  means 
of  gratifying  it,  and  you  can  hardly  fail  of  mak- 
ing him  a  happy  man ;  unless,  indeed,  you  put 
into  his  hands  a  most  perverse  selection  of  books. 
You  place  him  in  contact  with  the  best  society 
in  every  period  of  history — with  the  wisest,  the 
wittiest,  the  tenderest,  the  bravest,  and  the  purest 
characters  who  have  adorned  humanity.  You 
make  him  a  denizen  of  all  nations,  a  contempo- 
rary of  all  ages.  The  world  has  been  created 
for  him."     Among   his   books,  William  Ellery 


The  Reading  Habit,  25 

Channing  could  say :  "  In  the  best  books,  great 
men  talk  to  us,  with  us,  and  give  us  their  most 
precious  thoughts.  Books  are  the  voices  of  the 
distant  and  the  dead.  Books  are  the  true  level- 
ers.  They  give  to  all  who  will  faithfully  use 
them,  the  society  and  the  presence  of  the  best 
and  greatest  of  our  race.  No  matter  how  poor 
I  am ;  no  matter  though  the  prosperous  of  my 
own  time  will  not  enter  my  obscure  dwelKng,  if 
learned  men  and  poets  will  enter  and-  take  up 
their  abode  under  my  roof, — if  Milton  will  cross 
my  threshold  to  sing  to  me  of  Paradise;  and 
Shakespeare  open  to  me  the  world  of  imagina- 
tion and  the  workings  of  the  human  heart ;  and 
Franklin  enrich  me  with  his  practical  wisdom, — 
I  shall  not  pine  for  want  of  intellectual  compan- 
ionship, and  I  may  become  a  cultivated  man, 
though  excluded  from  what  is  called  the  best 

society  in  the  place  where  I  live Nothing 

can  supply  the  place  of  books.  They  are  cheer- 
ing and  soothing  companions  in  solitude,  illness, 
or  affliction.  The  wealth  of  both  continents 
could  not  compensate  for  the  good  they  impart. 
Let  every  man,  if  possible,  gather  some  good 
books  under  his  roof,  and  obtain  access  for  him- 
self and  family  to  some  social  library.     Almost 


26  The  Choice  of  Books, 

any  luxury  should  be  sacrificed  to  this."  An4 
one  cannot  wonder  that  Fenelon  said :  "  If  the 
crowns  of  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  empire  were 
laid  down  at  my  feet  in  exchange  for  my  books 
and  my  love  of  reading,  I  would  spurn  them  all ;", 
or  that  the  historian  Gibbon  wrote:  "A  taste 
for  books  is  the  pleasure  and  glory  of  my  life. 
I  would  not  exchange  it  for  the  glory  of  the 
Indies." 

All  these  words  of  wise  readers  show  that  he 
who  rightly  cultivates  the  reading  habit  can  not 
only  have  the  best  of  friends  ever  at  hand,  but 
can  at  length  say  with  all  modesty,  if  he  reads 
aright  and  remembers  well:  "  My  mind  to  me  a 
kingdom  is." 

The  foregoing  pages  are  from  "  The  Choice  of  Books,"  by- 
Charles  F.  Richardson,  a  very  beautiful  volume  of  208  pages, 
its  sixteen  chapters  treating  of  the  following  subjects : 


The  Motive  of  Reading. 
The  Reading  Habit. 
What  Books  to  Read. 
The  Best  Time  to  Read. 
How  Much  to  Read. 
Remembering        What       One 

Reads. 
The  Use  of  Note-Books. 
The  Cultivation  of  Taste. 


Poetry. 

The  Art  of  Skipping. 

The  Use  of  Translations. 

How  to  Read  Periodicals. 

Reading   Aloud  and   Reading 

Clubs. 
What  Books  to  Own, 
The  Use  of  Public  Libraries. 
The  True  Service  of  Reading. 

The  volume  is  sold  at  prices  as  follows:  Cloth  binding,  25 
cents;  half  Russia,  red  edges,  35  cents;  gilt,  gilt  edges,  35 
cents. 


What  Books  to  Read,  27 


WHAT  BOOKS  TO  READ. 

"  What  books  shall  I.  read  ? "  This  question 
virtually  includes  in  its  answer  the  consideration 
of  the  whole  world  of  letters,  and  is  of  such 
manifest  importance  that  no  individual  utterance, 
however  sincere  and  competent,  can  entirely 
cover  the  ground.  Different  tastes  and  needs 
call  for  different  suggestions.  In  this  chapter, 
therefore,  I  prefer  to  express  my  own  conclu- 
sions principally  in  the  words  of  mightier  men. 

Coming  thus  definitely  to  the  choice  of  partic- 
ular books,  we  find  that  only  the  smaller  and 
pettier  guides  presume  to  mark  out  definite 
courses  of  reading:  The  master  minds  never 
forget  that  books  were  made  for  readers,  not 
readers  for  books.  "  The  best  rule  of  reading," 
says  Emerson,  "  will  be  a  method  from  nature, 
and  not  a  mechanical  one  of  hours  and  pages. 
It  holds  each  student  to  a  pursuit  of  his  native 
aim,  instead  of  a  desultory  miscellany.  Let  him 
read  what  is  proper  to  him,  and  not  waste  his 
memory  on  a  crowd  of  mediocrities.  As  whole 
nations  have  derived  their  culture  from  a  single 


28  The  Choice  of  Books, 

book — as  the  Bible  has  been  the  literature  as 
well  as  the  religion  of  large  portions  of  Europe 
— as  Haiiz  was  the  eminent  genius  of  the  Per- 
sians, Confucius  of  the  Chinese,  Cervantes  of 
the  Spaniards ;  so,  perhaps,  the  human  mind 
would  be  a  gainer,  if  all  the  secondary  writers 
were  lost — say,  in  England,  all  but  Shakespeare, 
Milton,  and  Bacon — through  the  profounder 
study  so  drawn  to  those  wonderful  minds. 
With  this  pilot  of  his  own  genius,  let  the  student 
read  one,  or  let  him  read  many,  he  will  read  ad- 
vantageously." 

This  advantage  of  following  the  common  con- 
sent of  the  best  critics  as  to  what  are  the  world's 
best  books,  is  further  pressed  by  Mr.  Emerson 
when  he  urges  us  to  ''  be  sure  to  read  no  mean 
books ;"  and  when,  in  more  definite  language,  he 
lays  down  his  three  well-known  rules  ;  ''  i.  Never 
read  any  book  that  is  not  a  year  old.  2.  Never 
read  any  but  famed  books.  3.  Never  read  any 
but  what  you  like  ;  or,  in  Shakespeare's  phrase — 

No  profit  goes  where  is  no  pleasure  ta'en  ; 
In  brief,  sir,  study  what  you  most  affect." 

The  first  of  these  rules  is  clearly  not  to  be 
followed  in  every  case.  It  is,  indeed,  modified 
by  the  third  rule,  which  must  sometimes  take 


What  Books  to  Read,  29 

precedence  of  it.  But  there  can  be  no  question 
that  the  great  majority  of  readers  are  in  much 
more  danger  of  wasting  their  time  over  books 
that  are  new,  than  of  losing  sight  of  contempo- 
rary Kterature  through  an  exclusive  devotion  to 
the  standard  books  of  past  ages. 

Carlyle  says  that  all  books  are  to  be  divided 
into  two  classes,  sheep  and  goats.  "  Readers 
are  not  aware  of  the  fact,"  he  says,  "  but  a  fact  it 
is  of  daily  increasing  magnitude,  and  already  of 
terrible  importance  to  readers,  that  their  first 
grand  necessity  in  reading  is  to  be  vigilantly, 
conscientiously  select ;  and  to  know  everywhere 
that  books,  like  human  souls,  are  actually  divided 
into  what  we  may  call  sheep  and  goats — the  lat- 
ter put  inexorably  on  the  left  hand  of  the  judge  ; 
and  tending,  every  goat  of  them,  at  all  moments, 
whither  we  know,  and  much  to  be  avoided,  and, 
if  possible,  ignored  b}^  all  sane  creatures." 
i  Thoreau  expressed  the  same  thought  more 
bombastically,  but  not  more  forcibly,  when  he 
said :  *'  Read  not  the  Times ;  read  the  Eterni- 
ties." Ruskin  further  and  more  minutely  marks 
the  same  distinction  by  noting  the  difference  be- 
tween books  of  the  hour,  and  books  of  all  time. 
"All   books,"   says  he,  "are  divisible  into   two 


30  The  Choice  of  Books, 

classes,  the  books  of  the  hour,  and  the  books  of 
all  time.  Mark  this  distinction — it  i^  not  one  of 
quality  only.  It  is  not  merely  the  bad  book  that 
does  not  last,  and  the  good  one  that  does.  It  is 
a  distinction  of  species.  There  are  good  books 
for  the  hour,  and  good  books  for  all  time ;  bad 
books  for  the  hour,  and  bad  ones  for  all  time.  I 
must  define  the  two  kinds  before  I  go  farther. 
The  good  book  of  the  hour,  then — I  do  not 
speak  of  the  bad  ones — is  simply  the  useful  or 
pleasant  talk  of  some  person  whom  you  cannot 

otherwise  converse  with,  printed  for  you 

These  bright  accounts  of  travels ;  good-humored 
and  witty  discussions  of  question ;  lively  or  pa- 
thetic story-teUing  in  the  form  of  novel ;  firm 
fact-telling  by  the  real  agents  concerned  in  the 
events  of  passing  history  ;  all  these  books  of  the 
hour,  multiplying  among  us  as  education  be- 
comes more  general,  are  a  peculiar  characteristic 
and  possession  of  the  present  age ;  we  ought  to 
be  entirely  thankful  for  them,  and  entirely 
ashamed  of  ourselves  if  we  make  no  good  use  of 
them.  But  we  make  the  worst  possible  use,  if 
we  allow  them  to  usurp  the  place  of  true  books ; 
for,  strictly  speaking,  they  are  not  books  at  all, 
but  merely  letters  or  newspapers  in  good  print. 


What  Books  to  Read,  31 

Our  friend's  letter  may  be  delightful,  or  neces- 
sary, to-day ;  whether  worth  keeping  or  not,  is 
to  be  considered.  The  newspaper  may  be  en- 
tirely proper  at  breakfast  time ;  but  assuredly  it 
is  not  reading  for  all  day.  So,  though  bound  up 
in  a  volume,  the  long  letter  which  gives  you  so 
pleasant  an  account  of  the  inns,  and  roads,  and 
weather  last  year  at  such  a  place,  or  which  tells 
you  that  amusing  story,  or  gives  you  the  real 
circumstances  of  such  and  such  events,  however 
valuable  for  occasional  reference,  may  not  be,  in 
the  real  sense  of  the  word,  a  '  book '  at  all,  nor, 
in  the  real  sense,  to  be  *  read.'  A  book  is  essen- 
tially not  a  talked  thing,  but  a  written  thing ; 
and  written,  not  with  the  view  of  mere  commu- 
nication, but  of  permanence.  The  book  of  talk 
is  printed  only  because  its  author  cannot  speak 
to  thousands  of  people  at  once ;  if  he  could,  he 
would — the  volume  is  mere  multiplication  of  his 
voice.  You  cannot  talk  to  your  friend  in  India ; 
if  you  could,  you  would ;  you  write  instead : 
that  is  mere  conveyance  of  voice.  But  a  book 
is  written,  not  to  multiply  the  voice  merely,  not 
to  carry  it  merely,  but  to  preserve  it.  The  au- 
thor has  something  to  say  which  he  perceives 
to  be  true  and  useful,  or  helpfullj^  beautiful.     So 


32  The  Choice  of  Books. 

far  as  he  knows,  no  one  has  yet  said  it ;  so  far  as 
he  knows,  no  one  else  can  say  it ;  he  is  bound  to 
say  it,  clearly  and  melodiously  if  he  may,  clearly, 
at  all  events.  In  the  sum  of  his  life  he  finds  this 
to  be  the  thing,  or  group  of  things,  manifest  tOy 
him ;  this  the  piece  of  true  knowledge,  or  sight, 
which  his  share  of  sunshine  and  earth  has  per- 
mitted him  to  sei^.  He  would  fain  set  it  down 
forever ;  engrave  it  on  rock,  if  he  could  ;  saying, 
*  This  is  the  best  of  me ;  for  the  rest,  I  ate,  and 
drank,  and  slept,  loved,  and  hated,  like  another ; 
my  life  was  as  the  vapor,  and  is  not ;  but  this  I 
saw  and  knew ;  this,  if  anything  of  mine,  is 
worth  your  memory.'  That  is  his  '  writing ;'  it 
is,  in  his  small  human  way,  and  with  whatever 
degree  of  true  inspiration  is  in  him,  his  inscrip- 
tion, or  scripture.     That  is  a  '  Book.'  " 

Ruskin  thus  makes  clear  the  fact  that  the  real 
value  of  any  book,  to  a  particular  reader,  is  to 
be  measured  by  its  serviceableness  to  that  reader. 
"  There  is  a  Hterature  of  knowledge,  and  a  liter- 
ature of  power,"  says  De  Quincey ;  and  knowl- 
edge that  can  never  be  transmuted  into  power, 
becomes  mere  intellectual  rubbish.  The  choice 
of  books  would  be  greatly  aided  if  the  reader,  in 
taking  up  a  volume,  would  always  ask  himself 


What  Books  to  Read.  33 

just  why  he  is  going  to  read  it,  and  of  what 
service  it  is  to  be  to  him.  This  question,  if  sin- 
cerely put,  and  truthfully  answered,  is  pretty 
sure  to  lead  him  to  the  great  books — or  at  least 
to  the  books  that  are  great  for  him. 

Homer,  Plutarch,  Herodotus,  and  Plato ;  Vir- 
gil, Livy,  and  Tacitus ;  Dante,  Tasso,  and  Pe- 
trach ;  Cervantes ;  Thomas  a  Kempis ;  Goethe 
and  Schiller;  Chaucer,  Spenser,  Shakespeare, 
Milton,  Bacon,  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Bunyan, 
Addison,  Gray,  Scott,  and  Wordsworth ;  Haw- 
thorne, Emerson,  Motley,  Longfellow,  Bryant, 
Lowell,  Holmes,  and  Whittier — he  who  reads 
these,  and  such  as  these,  is  not  in  serious  danger 
of  spending  his  time  amiss.  But  not  even  such 
a  list  as  this  is  to  be  received  as  a  necessity  by 
every  reader.  One  may  find  Cowper  more 
profitable  than  Wordsworth ;  to  another,  the 
reading  of  Bancroft  may  be  more  advantageous 
than  that  of  Herodotus ;  while  a  third  may  gain 
more  immediate  and  lasting  good  from  historical 
novels  like  Ebers's  "  Uarda,"  or  Kingsley's 
"  Hypatia,"  than  from  a  long  and  patient  at- 
tempt to  master  Grote's  ''  History  of  Greece," 
or  Gibbon's  "  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman 

Empire."     Each  individual  reader  must  try  to 
3 


34  The  Choice  of  Books, 

determine,  first  of  all,~what  is  best  for  himself. 
In  forming  his  decision  let  him  make  the  utmost 
use  of  the  best  guides,  not  forgetting  that  the 
average  opinion  of  educated  men  is  pretty  sure 
to  be  a  correct  opinion ;  but  let  him  never  put 
aside  his  own  honesty  and  individuality.  He 
must  choose  his  books  as  he  chooses  his  friends, 
because  of  their  integrity  and  helpfulness,  and 
because  of  the  pleasure  their  society  gives  him. 

Mr.  Matthew  Arnold,  not  all  of  whose  advice 
is  to  be  implicitly  received,  well  emphasizes  the 
necessity  of  reading  with  one's  highest  aims  in 
view,  when  he  says  :  ''  The  poor  require  culture 
as  much  as  the  rich  ;  and  at  present  their  educa- 
tion, even  when  they  get  education,  gives  them 
hardly  anything  of  it ;  yet  hardly  less  of  it,  per- 
haps, than  the  education  of  the  rich  gives  to  the 
rich.  For  when  we  say  that  culture  is.  To  know 
the  best  that  has  been  thought  and  said  to  the 
world,  we  imply  that,  for  culture,  a  system  di- 
rectly tending  to  this  end  is  necessary  in  our 
reading.  Now  there  is  no  such  s}' stem  yet  pres- 
ent to  guide  the  reading  of  the  rich,  any  more 
than  of  the  poor.  Such  a  system  is  hardly  even 
thought  of ;  a  man  who  wants  it  must  make  u 
for  himself.     And  our  reading  being  so  without 


What  Books  to  Read.  35 

purpose  as  it  is,  nothing  can  be  truer  than  what 
Butler  says,  that  really,  in  general,  no  part  of 
our  time  is  more  idly  spent  than  the  time  spent 
in  reading.  Still,  culture  is  indispensably  neces- 
sar}^,  and  culture  implies  reading ;  but  reading 
with  a  purpose  to  guide  it,  and  with  system. 
He  does  a  good  work  who  does  anything  to 
help  this ;  indeed,  it  is  the  one  essential  service 
now  to  be  rendered  to  education.  And  the 
plea  that  this  or  that  man  has  no  time  for  cul- 
ture will  vanish  as  soon  as  we  desire  culture  so 
much  that  we  begin  to  examine  seriously  our 
present  use  of  our  time." 

"  Every  book  that  we  take  up  without  a  pur- 
pose," says  Mr.  Frederick  Harrison,  "  is  an  op- 
portunity lost  of  taking  up  a  book  with  a  purpose ; 
every  bit  of  stray  information  which  we  cram 
into  our  heads  without  any  sense  of  its  import- 
ance, is  for  the  most  part  a  bit  of  the  most  useful 
information  driven  out  of  our  heads  and  choked 
off  from  our  minds.  It  is  so  certain  that  infor- 
mation, that  is,  the  knowledge,  the  stored 
thoughts  and  observations  of  mankind,  is  now- 
grown  to  proportions  so  utterly  incalculable  and 
prodigious,  that  even  the  learned  whose  lives 
are  given  to  study  can  but  pick  up  some  crumbs 


3^  The  Choice  of  Books. 

that  fall  from  the  table  of  truth.  They  delve 
and  tend  but  a  plot  in  that  vast  and  teeming 
kingdom,  whilst  those  whom  active  life  leaves 
with  but  a  few  cramped  hours  of  study  can 
hardly  come  to  know  the  very  vastness  of  the 
field  before  them,  or  how  infinitesimally  small  is 
the  corner  they  can  traverse  at  the  best.  We 
know  all  is  not  of  equal  value.  We  know  that 
books  differ  in  value  as  much  as  diamonds  differ 
from  the  sand  on  the  seashore,  as  much  as  our 
living  friend  differs  from  a  dead  rat.  We  know 
that  much  in  the  myriad-peopled  world  of  books 
' — very  much  in  all  kinds — is  trivial,  enervating, 
inane,  even  noxious.  And  thus,  where  we  have 
infinite  opportunities  of  Avasting  our  efforts  to  no 
end,  of  fatiguing  our  minds  without  enriching 
them,  of  clogging  the  spirit  without  satisfying  it, 
there,  I  cannot  but  think,  the  very  infinity  of 
opportunities  is  robbing  us  of  the  actual  power 
of  using  them.  And  thus  I  come  often,  in  my 
less  hopeful  moods,  to  watch  the  remorseless 
cataract  of  daily  literature  which  thunders  over 
the  remnants  of  the  past,  as  if  it  were  a  fresh  im- 
pediment to  the  men  of  our  day  in  the  way  of 
systematic  knowledge  and  consistent  powers  of 
thought;  as  if- it  were  destined  one  day  to  over- 


What  Books  to  Read,  37 

whelm  the  great  inheritance  of  mankind  in  prose 
and  verse." 

A  reader  who  is  ever  seeking  for  a  book  that 
shall  not  only  be  helpful  in  some  sense,  but  help- 
ful in  a  high  sense,  is  not  likely  to  waste  his 
time  over  that  which  is  merely  respectable  in- 
stead of  that  which  is  really  great.  "  I  am  not 
presumptuous  enough,"  says  Mr.  Harrison  fur- 
ther, "  to  assert  that  the  larger  part  of  modern 
literature  is  not  worth  reading  in  itself,  that  the 
prose  is  not  readable,  entertaining,  one  may  say, 
highly  instructive.  Nor  do  I  pretend  that  the 
verses  which  we  read  so  zealously  in  place  of 
Milton's  are  not  good  verses.  On  the  contrary, 
I  think  them  sweetly  conceived,  as  musical  and 
as  graceful  as  the  verse  of  any  age  in  our  history. 
I  say  it  emphatically,  a  great  deal  of  our  modern 
literature  is  such  that  it  is  exceedingly  difficult 
to  resist  it,  and  it  is  undeniable  that  it  gives  us 
real  information.  It  seems  perhaps  unreasonable 
to  many,  to  assert  that  a  decent  readable  book 
which  gives  us  actual  instruction  can  be  other- 
wise than  a  useful  companion,  and  a  solid  gain. 
I  dare  say  many  people  are  ready  to  cry  out 
upon  me  as  an  obscurantist  for  venturing  to 
doubt  a  genial  confidence  in  all  literature  simply 


38  The  Choice  of  Books, 

as  such.  But  the  question  which  weighs  upon 
me  with  such  really  crushing  urgency  is  this: — 
What  are  the  books  that  in  our  little  remnant  of 
reading  time  it  is  most  vital  for  us  to  know? 
For  the  true  use  of  books  is  of  such  sacred  value 
to  us  that  to  be  simply  entertained  is  to  cease  to 
be  taught,  elevated,  inspired  by  books ;  merely  to 
gather  information  of  a  chance  kind  is  to  close 
the  mind  to  knowledge  of  the  urgent  kind." 

This  union  of  freedom  with  authority — of  a 
choice  for  one's  self,  and  a  willingness  to  believe 
that  the  world  is  right  in  setting  Shakespeare 
above  Swinburne,  and  Homer  above  Tupper — 
is,  I  believe,  the  true  and  the  only  guide  in  the 
selection  of  books  to  read.  Jn  the  long  run, 
nothing  but  truth,  simplicity,  purity,  and  a  lofty 
purpose  approves  a  book  to  the  favor  of  the 
ages ;  and  nothing  else  ought  to  approve  it  to 
the  individual  reader.  Thus  the  end  is  reached 
and  the  choice  is  made,  not  by  taking  a  book  be- 
cause a  "  course  of  reading  "  commands  you  to 
do  so,  but  because  you  come  to  see  for  yourself 
the  wisdom  of  the  selection.  The  pure  and 
wholesome  heart  of  humanity — that  thing  which 
we  call  conscience — is  the  guide  of  readers  as  it 
is  of  every  other  class  of  workers  in  life. 


What  Books  to  Read,  39 

In  this  connection  it  should  be  strongly  em- 
phasized that  nothing  is  so  fatal  to  sound  habits 
of  reading  as  the  loss  of  hearty  enthusiasm,  and 
the  substitution  therefor  of  artificiality  and  dilet- 
tanteism.  I  cannot  better  put  the  wide  applica- 
bihty  of  this  truth,  in  matters  of  literature,  than 
by  making  another  quotation  from  Mr.  Harrison, 
who  is  in  some  ways  one  of  the  wisest  and  most 
helpful  of  recent  literary  counselors.  In  the 
passages  I  have  chosen  will  be  found  wholesome 
suggestions  on  other  topics  connected  with  the 
general  subject  of  reading, — a  subject  which  is 
ever  branching  out  in  new  directions  on  this  side 
and  on  that.  "  I  have  no  intention,"  says  Mr. 
Harrison,  "  to  moralize  or  to  indulge  in  a  homily 
against  the  reading  of  what  is  deliberately  evil. 
There  is  not  so  much  need  for  this  now,  and  I 
am  not  discoursing  on  the  whole  duty  of  man. 
I  take  that  part  of  our  reading  which  is  by  itself 
no  doubt  harmless,  entertaining,  and  even  gently 
instructive.  But  of  this  enormous  mass  of  lit- 
erature how  much  deserves  to  be  chosen  out,  to 
be  preferred  to  all  the  great  books  of  the  world, 
to  be  set  apart  for  those  precious  hours  which 
are  all  that  the  most  of  us  can  give  to  solid  read- 
ing ?     The  vast  proportion  of  books  are  books 


40  The  Choice  of  Books. 

that  we  shall  never  be  able  to  read.  A  serious 
percentage  of  books  are  not  Avorth  reading  at  all. 
The  really  vital  books  for  us  we  also  know  to  be 
a  very  trifling  portion  of  the  whole.  And  yet 
we  act  as  if  every  book  were  as  good  as  any 
other,  as  if  it  were  merely  a  question  of  order 
which  we  take  up  first,  as  if  any  book  were  good 
enough  for  us,  and  as  if  all  were  alike  honorable, 
precious,  and  satisfying.  Alas !  books  cannot 
be  more  than  the  men  who  write  them,  and  as  a 
large  proportion  of  the  human  race  now  write 
books,  with  motives  and  objects  as  various  as  hu- 
man activity,  books  as  books  are  entitled  a  priori, 
until  their  value  is  proved,  to  the  same  attention 
and  respect  as  houses,  steam-engines,  pictures, 
fiddles,  bonnets,  and  other  thoughtful  or  orna- 
mental products  of  human  industr3^  In  the 
shelves  of  those  libraries  which  are  our  pride, 
libraries  public  or  private,  circulating  or  very 
stationary,  are  to  be  found  those  great  books  of 
the  world, '  rari  nantes  in  gurgite  vas  to,'  those 
books  which  are'^ruly  'the  precious  life-blood  of 
a  master  spirit.'  But  the  very  familiarity  which 
their  might}^  fame  has  bred  in  us  makes  us  indif- 
ferent ;  we  grow  weary  of  what  every  one  is 
supposed  to  have  read,  and  we  take  down  some- 


What  Books  to  Read.  41 

thing  which  looks  a  little  eccentric,  or  some  au- 
thor on  the  mere  ground  that  we  never  heard  of 
him  before How  does  the  trivial,  pro- 
vided it  is  the  new,  that  which  stares  at  us  in  the 
advertising  columns  of  the  day,  crowd  out  the 
immortal  poetry  and  pathos  of  the  human  race, 
vitiating  our  taste  for  those  exquisite  pieces 
which  are  a  household  word,  and  weakening  our 
mental  relish  for  the  eternal  works  of  genius ! 
Old  Homer  is  the  very  fountain-head  of  pure 
poetic  enjoyment,  of  all  that  is  spontaneous,  sim- 
ple, native,  and  dignified  in  life.  He  takes  us 
into  the  ambrosial  world  of  heroes,  of  human 
vigor,  of  purity,  of  grace.  Now  Homer  is  one 
of  the  few  poets  the  life  of  whom  can  be  fairly 
preserved  in  a  translation.  Most  men  and  women 
can  say  that  they  have  read  Homer,  just  as  most 
of  us  can  say  that  we  have  studied  Johnson's 
Dictionary.  But  how  few  of  us  take  him  up, 
time  after  time,  with  fresh  delight!  How  few 
have  ever  read  the  entire  '  Ihad  '  and  '  Odyssey  * 
through !  Whether  in  the  resounding  lines  of 
the  old  Greek,  as  fresh  and  ever-stirring  as  the 
waves  that  tumble  on  the  sea-shore,  filling  the 
soul  with  satisfying,  silent  wonder  at  its  restless 
unison  ;  whether  in  the  quaint  lines  of  Chapman, 


42  The   Choice  of  Books. 

or  the  clarion  couplets  of  Pope,  or  the  cleser 
versions  of  Cowper,  Lord  Derby,  or  Philip 
Worsley,  or  even  in  the  new  prose  version  of 
the  '  Odyssey,'  Homer  is  always  fresh  and  rich. 
And  yet  how  seldom  does  one  find  a  friend  spell- 
bound over  the  Greek  Bible  [Homer]  of  antiqui- 
ty, while  they  wade  through  torrents  of  maga- 
zine quotations  from  a  petty  versifier  of  to-day, 
and  in  an  idle  vacation  will  graze  as  content- 
edly as  cattle  in  a  fresh  meadow,  through  the 
chopped  straw  of  a  circulating  library.  A  gen- 
eration which  will  listen  to  '  Pinafore '  for  three 
hundred  nights,  and  will  read  M.  Zola's  seven- 
teenth romance,  can  no  more  read  Homer  than 
it  could  read  a  cuneiform  inscription.  It  will 
read  about  Homer  just  as  it  will  read  about  a 
cuneiform  inscription,  and  will  crowd  to  see  a 
few  pots  which  probably  came  from  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Troy.  But  to  Homer  and  the  prim- 
eval type  of  heroic  man  in  his  beauty,  and  his 
simpleness,  and  joyousness,  the  cultured  gener- 
ation is  really  dead,  as  completely  as  some 
spoiled  beauty  of  the  ball-room  is  dead  to  the 
bloom  of  the  heather  or  the  waving  of  the  daffo- 
dils in  a  glade.  It  is  a  true  psychological  pro- 
blem, this  nausea  which  idle  culture  seems  to 


What  Books  to  Read,  ^  43 

produce  for  all  that  is  manly  and  pure  in  heroic 
poetry.  One  knows — at  least  every  schoolboy 
has  known — that  a  passage  of  Homer,  .rolling 
along  in  the  hexameter  or  trumped  out  by  Pope, 
will  give  one  a  hot  glow  of  pleasure  and  raise  a 
finer  throb  in  the  pulse ;  one  knows  that  Homer 
is  the  easiest,  most  artless,  most  diverting  of  all 
poets ;  that  the  fiftieth  reading  rouses  the  spirit 
even  more  than  the  first — and  yet  we  find  our- 
selves (we  are  all  alike)  painfully  psha-ing  over 
some  new  and  uncut  barley-sugar  in  rhyme,which 
a  man  in  the  street  asked  us  if  we  had  read  ;  or  it 
may  be  some  learned  lucubration  about  the  site 
of  Troy,  by  some  one  wc  chanced  to  meet  at 
dinner.  It  is  an  unwritten  chapter  in  the  history 
of  the  human  mind,  how  this  literary  prurience 
after  new  print  unmans  us  for  the  enjoyment  of 
the  old  songs  chanted  forth  in  the  sunrise  of 
human  imagination.  To  ask  a  man  or  woman 
who  spends  half  a  lifetime  in  sucking  magazines 
and  new  poems,  to  read  a  book  of  Homer,  would 
be  like  asking  a  butcher's  boy  to  whistle  '  Ade- 
laida.'  The  noises  and  sights  and  talk,  the  whirl 
and  volatility  of  Hfe  around  us,  are  too  strong 
for  us.  A  society  which  is  forever  gossiping  in 
a  sort  of  perpetual  '  drum,'  loses  the  very  faculty 


44  The  Choice  of  Books, 

of  caring  for  anything  but  '  early  copies '  and  the 
last  tale  out.  Thus,  like  the  tares  in  the  noble 
parable  of  the  Sower,  a  perpetual  chatter  about 
books  chokes  the  seed  which  is  sown  in  the 
greatest  books  in  the  world.  I  speak  of  Homer, 
but  fifty  other  great  poets  and  creators  of  eter- 
nal beauty  would  serve  my  argument  as  well." 

Has  it  not  been  made  clear,  in  the  words  of 
thoughtful  counselors  by  which,  in  this  chapter, 
I  have  sought  to  strengthen  and  make  plain  my 
own  sincerest  convictions  concerning  the  proper 
selection  of  books,  that  the  reader  must  always 
•search  for — 

Books  that  are  wholesome  ; 

Books  that  are  helpful  to  him  personally ; — 
and  that,  if  by  following  these  rules,  he  does  not 
find  that  his  choice   usually   falls   upon  books 
which  the  greatest  minds  call  great,  the  fault  is 
more  likely  to  be  in  himself  than  in  them. 


The  Best   Time  to  Read,  45 


THE  BEST  TIME  TO  READ. 

.  In  the  choice  of  the  time  for  reading,  as  in 
that  of  the  books  to  read,  large  hberty  must  be 
given  to  individual  needs  and  habits.  There  is 
no  hour  of  the  twenty-four  which  may  not, 
under  certain  circumstances,  be  profitably  spent 
in  reading.  In  the  lonely  watches  of  a  sleepless 
night ;  in  the  precious  hours  of  early  morning ; 
in  the  busy  forenoon,  the  leisurely  afternoon,  or 
in  the  long  winter  evenings;  —  whenever  the 
time  and  inclination  comes,  that  is  your  time  for 
reading.  If  the  inclination  does  not  come  Avith 
the  time,  if  the  mind  is  weary,  and  the  attention 
hard  to  fix,  then  it  is  better  to  lose  that  special 
time  so  far  as  reading  is  concerned,  and  to  take 
up  something  else.  A  much  shorter  time  chosen 
under  more  favorable  circumstances, — if  it  is 
only  five  minutes  in  a  busy  day, — will  more  than 
make  up  the  loss. 

Everybody  has  some  time  to  read,  how^ever 
much  he  may  have  to  do.  Many  a  woman  has 
read  to  excellent  purpose  while  mixing  bread,  or 
waiting  for  the  meat  to  brown,  or  tending  the. 


4^  The   Choice  of  Books, 

baby, — simply  by  reading  a  sentence  when  she 
could.  INIen  have  become  well-read  at  the  black- 
smith's forge,  or  the  printer's  case,  or  behind  the 
counter.  No  time  is  too  short,  and  no  occupa- 
tion is  too  mean,  to  be  made  to  pay  tribute  to  a 
real  desire  for  knowledge.  I  know  of  a  woman 
who  read  "  Paradise  Lost,"  and  two  or  three 
other  standard  Avorks,  aloud  to  her  husband  in  a 
single  winter,  while  he  was  shaving,  that  being 
the  only  available  time.  "  There  is  no  business, 
no  avocation  whatever,"  says  Wj^ttenbach, 
*'  which  will  not  permit  a  man,  who  has  an  incli- 
nation, to  give  a  little  time,  every  day,  to  the 
studies  of  his  youth  ;"  and  this  truth  is  equally 
apphcable  to  the  studies  taken  up  in  middle  Hfe 
or  old  age.  ''  Whilst  you  stand  deliberating 
which  book  j'our  son  shall  read  first,  another 
boy  has  read  both ;  read  anything  five  hours  a 
da}^,  and  you  will  soon  be  learned ;"  said  Dr. 
Johnson.  Five  hours  a  day  is  a  large  amount  of 
time,  but  five  minutes  a  day,  spent  over  good 
books,  will  give  a  man  a  great  deal  of  knowledge 
worth  having,  before  a  year  is  out.  It  is  the 
time  thus  spent  that  counts  for  more,  to  one's 
intellectual  self,  than  all  the  rest  of  the  day 
occupied   in   mere   manual    labor.      "There   is 


The  Best   Time  to  Read,  47 

nothing  in  the  recollections  of  my  childhood," 
says  Mary  C.  Ware,  "  that  I  look  back  upon  with 
so  much  pleasure  as  the  reading  aloud  my  books 
to  my  mother.  She  was  then  a  woman  of  many 
cares,  and  in  the  habit  of  engaging  in  every 
variety  of  household  work.  Whatever  she  might 
be  doing  in  kitchen,  or  dairy,  or  parlor,  she  was 
always  ready  to  listen  to  me,  and  to  explain 
whatever  I  did  not  understand.  There  was  al- 
ways with  her  an  undercurrent  of  thought  about 
other  things,  mingling  with  all  her  domestic 
duties,  lightening  and  modifying  them,  but  never 
leading  her  to  neglect  them,  or  to  perform  them 
imperfectly.  I  believe  it  is  to  this  trait  of  her 
character  that  she  owes  the  elasticity  and  ready 
social  sympathy  that  still  animates  her  under  the 
weight  of  almost  fourscore  years." 

There  is  a  need  of  a  constant  mental  economy 
in  the  choice  of  time  for  reading,  be  it  much  or 
little.  ^'  It  is  true,"  says  Philip  Gilbert  Hamer- 
ton,  "  that  the  most  absolute  master  of  his  own 
hours  still  needs  thrift  if  he  would  turn  them  to 
account,  and  that  too  many  never  learn  this 
thrift,  whilst  others  learn  it  late."  Nor  is  it  only 
those  whose  pursuits  are  not  distinctly  literary 
who  fail  to  make  the  best  use  of  the  passing 


48  The  Choice  of  Books. 

hours.  ''  Few  intellectual  men,"  says  Mr.  Ham- 
erton,  "  have  the  art  of  economizing  the  hours 
of  study.  The  very  necessity,  which  every  one 
acknowledges,  of  giving  vast  portions  of  hfe  to 
attain  proficiency  in  anything,  makes  us  prod- 
igal where  we  ought  to  be  parsimonious,  and 
careless  where  we  have  need  of  unceasing  vigi- 
lance. The  best  time-savers  are  a  love  of  sound- 
ness in  all  we  learn  or  do,  and  a  cheerful  accept- 
ance of  inevitable  limitations.  There  is  a  certain 
point  of  proficiency  at  which  an  acquisition  be- 
gins to  be  of  use,  and  unless  we  have  the  time 
and  resolution  necessary  to  reach  that  point,  our 
labor  is  as  completely  thrown  away  as  that  of 
the  mechanic  who  began  to  make  an  engine  but 
never  finished  it.  Each  of  us  has  acquisitions 
which  remain  permanently  unavailable  from 
their  unsoundness :  a  language  or  two  that  we 
can  neither  speak  nor  write,  a  science  of  which 
the  elements  have  not  been  mastered,  an  art 
which  we  cannot  practice  with  satisfaction  either 
to  others  or  to  ourselves.  Now  the  time  spent 
on  these  unsound  accomplishments  has  been  in 
great  measure  wasted ;  not  quite  absolutely 
wasted,  since  the  mere  labor  of  trying  to  learn 
has  been  a  discipfine  for  the  mind,  but  wasted  so 


The  Best   Time  to  Read,  49 

far  as  the  accomplishments  themselves  are  con- 
cerned. And  this  mental  discipline,  on  which  so 
much  stress  is  laid  by  those  whose  interest  it  is 
to  encourage  unsound  accomplishments,  might  be 
obtained  more  perfectly  if  the  subjects  of  study 
were  less  numerous  and  more  thoroughly  under- 
stood." 

We  are  not  to  understand  from  this  that  noth- 
ing is  to  be  studied  with  which  we  do  not  intend 
to  become  profoundly  acquainted,  for  much 
knowledge  must  of  necessity  be  fragmentary  and 
incomplete.  The  adviser  is  merely  warning  us 
against  purposeless  intellectual  trifling.  "Too 
many  readers,"  says  J.  B.  Braithwaite,  "  allow 
their  moments  of  leisure  to  be  wasted  in  a  kind 
of  '  busy  idleness  ';  they  look  over  a  great  variety 
of  books,  but  for  want  of  settled  dihgence,  their 
unsteady  wanderings  in  prose  or  poetry  are  at- 
tended with  no  satisfactory  result.  There  is  a 
yet  larger  class  of  listless  triflers,  who  give  way 
to  lounging  and  indolent  habits  of  mind,  wholly 
unworthy  of  intelligent  and  responsible  beings. 
If  they  take  up  a  book  after  the  labors  of  the  day, 
it  is  too  often  a  feeble  attempt  to  think,  as  it  were, 
by  proxy ;  and  even  this  seems,  not  unfrequently, 
too  great  an  exertion,  and  the  future  can  alone 


50  The  Choice  of  Books, 

fully  disclose  how  many  are  the  precious  hours, 
now  never  to  be  recalled,  which  have  been 
thoughtlessly  trifled  away  over  a  newspaper,  a 
review,  or  other  publication  of  the  day,  with 
scarcely  an  object  besides  that  of  whiling  away 
the  time.  For  these  and  many  other  kindred 
evils  there  is  no  remedy  more  efficacious  than  a 
sound  and  healthy  purpose,  rightly  directed,  and 
steadily  maintained.  This  is  the  magnet  that  can 
discover  and  gather  to  itself,  even  from  the  dust, 
the  scattered  particles  within  the  range  of  its 
attraction.  With  this  all  our  reading  will  be  im- 
proved to  the  greatest  advantage :  whilst  without 
it  the  perusal  of  the  best  books  will  be  desultory 
and  comparatively  unimproving;  the  best  ma- 
terials may  be  collected,  but  they  will  be  in  rude 
heaps  that  incumber,  rather  than  adorn  the 
ground.  And  how  great  is  the  danger,  where 
there  is  no  fixed  aim,  that  life  may  be  frittered 
away  in  empty  and  profitless,  because  purpose- 
less, occupation." 

The  Germans,  who  certainly  have  great  re- 
sults to  show  for  the  time  they  spend  in  reading 
and  other  intellectual  pursuits,  may  profitably 
teach  us  two  lessons  concerning  the  best  time  to 
read :  that  brain-work  should  be  steady  and  un- 


The  Best  Time  to  Read,  51 

interrupted  while  it  lasts,  and  that  it  should  be 
varied  by  periods  of  rest  and  changed  employ- 
ment. "  In  the  charming  and  precious  letters  of 
Victor  Jacquemont,"  says  Hamerton,  "  a  man 
whose  life  was  dedicated  to  culture,  and  who  not 
only  lived  for  it,  but  died  for  it,  there  is  a  pas- 
sage about  the  intellectual  labors  of  Germans, 
which  takes  due  account  of  the  expenditure  of 
time."  This  letter  runs  as  follows  :  '^  Being  as- 
tonished at  the  prodigious  variety  and  at  the 
extent  of  knowledge  possessed  by  the  Germans, 
I  begged  one  of  my  friends,  Saxon  by  birth,  and 
one  of  the  foremost  geologists  in  Europe,  to  tell 
me  how  his  countrymen  managed  to  know  so 
many  things.  Here  is  his  answer,  nearly  in  his 
own  words  :  *  A  German  (except  myself,  who  am 
the  idlest  of  men)  gets  up  earl}^,  summer  and 
winter,  at  about  five  o'clock.  He  works  four 
hours  before  breakfast,  sometimes  smoking  all 
the  time,  which  does  not  intefere  with  his  appli- 
cation. His  breakfast  lasts  about  half  an  hour, 
and  he  remains,  afterwards,  another  half  hour 
talking  with  his  wife  and  playing  with  his  chil- 
dren. He  returns  to  his  work  for  six  hours, 
dines  without  hurrying  himself,  smokes  an  hour 
after  dinner,  playing  again  with  his  children,  and 


52  The  Choice  of  Books, 

before  he  goes  to  bed  he  works  four  hours  more. 
He  begins  agam  every  day,  and  never  goes  out. 
This  is  how  it  comes  to  pass  that  Oersted,  the 
greatest  natural  philosopher  in  Germany,  is  at 
the  same  time  the  greatest  physician  ;  this  is  how 
Kant,  the  metaphysician,  was  one  of  the  most 
learned  astronomers  in  Europe ;  and  how  Goethe, 
who  is  at  present  the  first  and  most  fertile  author 
in  Germany  in  almost  all  kinds  of  literature,  is 
an  excellent  botanist,  mineralogist,  and  natural 
philosopher.'  "  This  persistency  of  the  German 
character  evokes  grand  results  even  from  dull 
brains,  which  one  would  think  were  steeped  in 
beer  and  shriveled  by  excessive  smoking.  The 
advantages  of  persistency  and  a  "  change  of 
works,"  in  the  choice  of  time  for  brain  labor,  Mr. 
Hamerton  thus  further  presses  :  "  The  encourag- 
ing inference  which  you  may  draw  from  this  in 
reference  to  your  own  case  is  that,  since  all  intel- 
lectual men  have  had  more  than  one  pursuit,  you 
may  set  off  your  business  against  the  most  ab- 
sorbing of  their  pursuits,  and  for  the  rest  be  still 
almost  as  rich  in  time  as  they  have  been.  You 
may  study  literature  as  some  painters  have 
studied  it,  or  science  as  some  literary  men  have 
studied  it.     The  first  step  is  to  establish  a  regu- 


The  Best   Time  to  Read,  53 

lated  economy  of  your  time,  so  that,  without  in- 
terfering with  a  due  attention  to  business  and  to 
health,  you  may  get  two  clear  hours  every  day 
for  reading  of  the  best  kind.  It  is  not  much,  some 
men  would  tell  you  it  is  not  enough,  but  I  pur- 
posely fix  the  expenditure  of  time  at  a  low  figure 
because  I  want  it  to  be  always  practicable,  con- 
sistently with  all  the  duties  and  necessary  pleas- 
ures of  your  life.  If  I  told  you  to  read  four 
hours  every  day,  I  know  beforehand  what  would 
be  the  consequence.  You  would  keep  the  rule 
for  three  or  four  days,  by  an  effort,  then  some 
engagement  would  occur  to  break  it,  and  you 
would  have  no  rule  at  all.  And  please  observe 
that  the  two  hours  are  to  be  given  quite  regular- 
ly, because,  when  the  time  given  is  not  much, 
regularity  is  quite  essential.  Two  hours  a  day, 
regularly,  make  more  than  seven  hundred  hours 
in  a  year,  and  in  seven  hundred  hours,  wisely  and 
uninterruptedly  occupied,  much  may  be  done  in 
anything.  Permit  me  to  insist  upon  that  word 
uninterruptedly.  Few  people  realize  the  full 
evil  of  an  interruption,  few  people  know  all  that 
is  implied  by  it." 

Thus  to  avoid  interruption  we  may  properly 
separate  ourselves  at  times  from  the  society  of 


54  The  Choice  of  Books, 

our  ordinary  companions  at  home  or  abroad, 
when  such  separation  is  essential  to  sound  read- 
ing and  thinking.  I  do  not  mean  that  this  sepa- 
ration should  be  carried,  as  it  too  often  is,  to  the 
extent  of  positive  discourtesy  and  selfishness. 
Sometimes  the  best  possible  hour  for  reading  is 
that  spent  over  books  with  husband  or  wife  or 
friend.  But  as  between  time  well  spent  with 
books,  and  time  foolishly  spent  in  "  society,"  there 
can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  proper  choice.  Read- 
ers must  give  up  something,  and  that  something 
often  proves  to  be  an  undue  devotion  to  the  cus- 
toms and  rules  of  fashionable  social  intercourse, 
than  which  there  is  no  more  formidable  foe  to 
the  reading  habit. 

"  There  is  a  degree  of  incompatibility,"  Mr. 
Hamerton  says  further,  "between  the  fashion- 
able and  the  intellectual  lives,  which  makes  it 
necessary,  at  a  certain  time,  to  choose  one  or  the 
other  as  our  own.  There  is  no  hostility,  there 
need  not  be  any  uncharitable  feeling  on  one  side 
or  the  other,  but  there  must  be  a  resolute  choice 
between  the  two.  If  you  decide  for  the  intel- 
lectual life,  3^ou  will  incur  a  definite  loss  to  set 
against  your  gain.  Your  existence  may  have 
calmer  and  profounder  satisfactions,  but  it  will  be 


The  Best   Time  to  Read,  55 

less  amusing,  and  even  in  an  appreciable  degree 
less  human ;  less  in  harmony,  I  mean,  with  the 
common  instincts  and  feelings  of  humanity.  For 
the  fashionable  world,  although  decorated  by 
habits  of  expense,  has  enjoyment  for  its  object, 
and  arrives  at  enjoyment- by  those  methods  which 
the  experience  of  generations  have  proved  most 
efhcacious.  Variety  of  amusement,  frequent 
change  of  scenery  and  society,  healthy  exercise, 
pleasant  occupation  of  the  mind  without  fatigue 
— these  things  do  indeed  make  existence  agree- 
able to  human  nature,  and  the  science  of  living 
agreeably  is  better  understood  in  the  fashionable 
society  of  England  than  by  laborious  students 
and  savans.  The  life  led  by  that  society  is  the 
true  heaven  of  the  natural  man,  who  likes  to  have 
frequent  feasts  and  a  hearty  appetite,  who  enjoys 
the  varying  spectacle  of  wealth,  and  splendor, 
and  pleasure,  who  loves  to  watch,  from  the 
Olympus  of  his  personal  ease,  the  curious  results 
of  labor  in  which  he  takes  no  part,  the  interest- 
ing ingenuity  of  the  toiling  world  below.  In 
exchange  for  these  varied  pleasures  of  the  spec- 
tator, the  intellectual  life  can  offer  you  but  one 
satisfaction ;  for  all  its  promises  are  reducible 
simply  to  this,  that  you  shall  come  at  last,  after 


5  6  The  Choice  of  Books. 

infinite  labor,  into  contact  with  some  great  real- 
ity— that  you  shall  know,  and  do  in  such  sort, 
that  you  will  feel  yourself  on  firm  ground  and 
be  recognized,  probably  not  much  applauded, 
but  yet  recognized — as  a  fellow-laborer  by  other, 
knowers  and  doers.  Before  you  come  to  this, 
most  of  your  present  accomplishments,  w411  be 
abandoned  by  yourself  as  unsatisfactory  and  in- 
sufficient, but  one  or  two  of  them  will  be  turned 
to  better  account,  and  will  give  you  after  many 
years  a  tranquil  self-respect,  and,  w^hat  is  still 
rarer  and  better,  a  very  deep  and  earnest  rever- 
ence for  the  greatness  which  is  above  you.  Sev- 
ered from  the  vanities  of  the  illusory,  you  will 
live  with  the  realities  of  knowledge,  as  one  who 
has  quitted  the  painted  scenery  of  the  theater  to 
listen  by  the  eternal  ocean  or  gaze  at  the  granite 
hills." 

From  all  that  has  been  said,  the  reader  has 
seen  how  closely  the  best  choice  of  time  for  read- 
ing is  connected  with  the  best  use  of  that  time. 
If  we  devote  to  books  the  hours  or  the  minutes 
we  can  catch,  and  choose  our  reading  with  a  full 
sense  of  the  wideness  of  the  field  of  selection  and 
the  narrowness  of  the  time  in  which  we  can  work 
in  that  field,  we  shall  hardly  go  astray  in  our  de- 


How  Much  to  Read.  57 


HOW  MUCH  TO  READ. 

The  amount  which  it  is  advisable  for  one  to 
read  can  no  more  be  settled  off-hand,  in  a  general 
way,  than  the  quantity  of  his  food  or  the  proper 
limit  of  his  physical  exercise.  Tastes,  necessities, 
and  opportunities  differ ;  some  persons  can  un- 
doubtedly read  very  much  faster  than  others, 
and  yet  get  as  much  profit  from  their  reading. 
And  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  a  novel  is 
"  quicker  reading  "  than  a  history  of  Greece  ;  or 
that  a  clever  bit  of  vers  de  society  need  not  occupy 
the  mind  so  long  as  a  passage  of  equal  length 
from  Milton  or  Homer.  Then,  again,  a  clear  and 
luminous  writer  like  Longfellow  does  not  delay 
the  reader  as  does  an  obscure  and  artificial  poet 
like  Robert  Browning. 

In  general  terms,  one  has  passed  the  proper 
limit  of  reading  when  he  reads  without  suitable 
apprehension,  and  understanding,  and  promise 
of  retention  in  memory,  of  the  page  before  him, 
whether  it  be  novel  or  history,  humorous  poem 
or  didactic  verse.  "  Reading  with  me  incites  to 
reflection  instantly,"  says  Mr.  Beecher  ;  "  I  can- 


58  The  Choice  of  Books, 

not  separate  the  origination  of  ideas  from  the 
reception  of  ideas  ;  the  consequence  is,  as  I  read 
I  always  begin  to  think  in  various  directions,  and 
that  makes  my  reading  slow."  Dugald  Stewart 
thus  emphasizes  this  duty  of  thoughtfulness  in 
reading :  ''  Nothing,  in  truth,  has  such  a  ten- 
dency to  weaken,  not  only  the  powers  of  inven- 
tion, but  the  intellectual  powers  in  general,  as  a 
habit  of  extensive  and  various  reading  without 
reflection.  The  activity  and  force  of  the  mind 
are  gradually  impaired  in  consequence  of  disuse  ; 
and,  not  unfrequently,  all  our  principles  and 
opinions  come  to  be  lost  in  the  infinite  multipli- 
city and  discordancy  of  our  acquired  ideas." 

John  Locke  tells  us,  in  homely  but  sensible 
phrase,  that  "  Those  who  have  read  of  every- 
thing are  thought  to  understand  everything  too  ; 
but  it  is  not  always  so.  Reading  furnishes  the 
mind  only  with  the  materials  of  knowledge  ;  it 
is  thinking  that  makes  what  we  read  ours.  We 
are  of  the  ruminating  kind,  and  it  is  not  enough 
to  cram  ourselves  with  a  great  load  of  collec- 
tions :  unless  we  chew  them  over  again,  they 
will  not  give  us  strength  and  nourishment."  W. 
P.  Atkinson  thus  enforces  the  same  lesson  :  "  The 
most  important  question  for  the  good  student 


How  Much  to  Read,  59 

and  reader  is  not,  amidst  this  multitude  of  books 
which  no  man  can  number,  how  much  he  shall 
read.  The  really  important  questions  are,  first, 
what  is  the  quality  of  what  he  does  read ;  and, 
second,  what  is  his  manner  of  reading  it.  There 
IS  an  analogy  which  is  more  than  accidental  be- 
tween physical  and  mental  assimilation  and  di- 
gestion ;  and,  homely  as  the  illustration  may  seem, 
it  is  the  most  forcible  I  can  use.  Let  two  sit 
down  to  a  table  spread  with  food  :  one  possessed 
of  a  healthy  appetite,  and  knowing  something  of 
the  nutritious  qualities  of  the  various  dishes  be- 
fore him  ;  the  other  cursed  with  a  pampered  and 
capricious  appetite,  and  knowing  nothing  of  the 
results  of  chemical  and  physiological  investiga- 
tion. One  shall  make  a  better  meal,  and  go  away 
stronger  and  better  fed,  on  a  dish  of  oatmeal,  than 
the  other  on  a  dinner  that  has  emptied  his 
pockets.  Shall  we  study  plfysiological  chemis- 
try and  know  all  about  what  is  food  for  the  body, 
and  neglect  mental  chemistry,  and  be  utterly 
careless  as  to  what  nutriment  is  contained  in  the 
food  Ave  give  our  minds  ?  I  am  not  speaking  here 
of  vicious  literature  ;  we  don't  spread  our  tables 
with  poisons.  I  speak  only  of  the  varying 
amount  of  nutritive  matter  contained  in  books." 


6o  The  Choice  of  Books, 

J.  B.  Braithwaite,  another  sensible  writer  on 
this  topic,  says :  ''  The  mind  requires  nourishing 
food.  Trifling  reading  enfeebles  it."  Lord  Ba- 
con wisely  says :  ''  Read  not  to  contradict  and 
confute,  nor  to  believe  and  take  for  granted,  nor 
to  find  talk  and  discourse,  but  to  weigh  and  con- 
sider. This  is  the  great  secret  both  of  reading 
to  profit,  and  of  making  the  best  choice  of  what 
we  read.  If  books  were  more  commonly  judged 
by  their  real  weight,  how  many  popular  works 
would  at  once  shrink  into  insignificance  !  It  is 
melancholy  to  think  of  the  miUions  of  immortal 
minds,  that  accustom  themselves  to  reading, 
which  when  weighed  in  the  balance  is  found  to 
contain  little  less  than  the  lightness  of  vanity. 
How  many  that  might  have  attained  the  stature 
of  full  grown  men  have  thus  become  enervated, 
dwarfish,  deformed  or  crippled.  With  desires 
formed  for  the  highest  enjoyments,  and  under- 
standings capable  of  the  noblest  improvement, 
the  reading  of  trifling' and  pernicious  books,  the 
habit  of  mental  association  with  low,  mean  and 
unworthy  thoughts,  has  prostrated  the  energies 
of  thousands,  and  debased  them  below  them- 
selves." 

Coleridge  concluded,  in  speaking  of  such  friv- 


How  Much  to  Read,  6i 

olous  and  make-believe  attention  of  unworthy 
readers  to  unworthy  books :  "  Some  readers  are 
like  the  hour-glass — their  reading  is  as  the  sand. 
It  runs  in  and  runs  out,  but  leaves  not  a  vestige 
behind.  Some  like  a  sponge,  which  imbibes 
everything,  and  returns  it  in  the  same  state,  only 
a  little  dirtier.  Some  like  a  jelly-bag,  which 
allows  all  that  is  pure  to  pass  away,  and  retains 
only  the  refuse  and  dregs.  The  fourth  class  may 
be  compared  to  the  slave  of  Golcon-da,  who, 
casting  away  all  that  is  worthless,  preserves  only 
the  pure  gems."  The  usefulness  of  books  lies 
not  only  in  themselves  but  in  the  mind  of  the 
reader.  Petrarch  says :  "  Books  have  brought 
some  men  to  knowledge,  and  some  to  madness. 
As  fullness  sometimes  hurteth  the  stomach  more 
than  hunger,  so  fareth  it  with  the  wits,  and,  as  of 
meats,  so  likewise  of  books,  the  use  ought  to  be 
limited  according  to  the  quality  of  him  that 
useth  them." 

"  To  stuff  our  minds  with  what  is  simply  triv- 
ial, simply  curious,  or  that  which  at  best  has  but 
a  low  nutritive  power,"  says  Frederick  Harrison, 
"  this  is  to  close  our  minds  to  what  is  solid  and 

enlarging  and  spiritually   sustaining I 

think  the  habit  of  reading  wisely  is  one  of  the 


62  The  Choice  of  Books, 

most  difficult  habits  to  acquire,  needing  strong 
resolution  and  infinite  pains ;  and  I  hold  the 
habit  of  reading  for  mere  reading's  sake,  instead 
of  for  the  sake  of  the  stuff  we  gain  from  reading, 
to  be  one  of  the  worst  and  commonest  and  most 
unwholesome  habits  we  have.  Why  do  we  still 
suffer  the  traditional  hypocrisy  about  the  dignity 
of  literature,  literature  I  mean  in  the  gross,  which 
includes  about  equal  parts  of  what  is  useful  and 
what  is  useless?  Why  are  books  as  books, 
writers  as  writers,  readers  as  readers,  meritori- 
ous and  honorable,  apart  from  any  good  in  them, 
or  anything  that  we  can  get  from  them  ?  Why 
do  we  pride  ourselves  on  our  powers  of  absorb- 
ing print,  as  our  grandfathers  did  on  their  gifts 
in  imbibing  port,  when  we  know  that  there  is  a 
mode  of  absorbing  print  which  makes  it  impos- 
sible we  can  ever  learn  anything  good  out  of 
books?  Our  stately  Milton  said  in  a  passage 
which  is  one  of  the  watchwords  of  the  English 
race,  '  as  good  almost  kill  a  man  as  kill  a  good 
book.'  But  has  he  not  also  said  that  he  would 
*  have  a  vigilant  eye  how  books  demean  them- 
selves as  well  as  men,  and  do  sharpest  justice  on 
them  as  malefactors?'  Yes!  they  do  kill  the 
good  book  who  deliver  up  their  few  and  precious 


How  Much  to  Read,  63 

hours  of  reading  to  the  trivial  book ;  they  make 
it  dead  for  them ;  they  do  what  Hes  in  them  to 
destroy  '  the  precious  Hfe-blood  of  a  master  spirit, 
embalmed  and  treasured  up  on  purpose  to  a  life 
beyond  life  ;'  they  '  spill  that  seasoned  life  of  man 
preserved  and  stored  up  in  books.'  For  in  the 
wilderness  of  books  most  men,  certainly  all  busy 
men,  must  strictly  choose.  If  they  saturate  their 
minds  with  the  idler  books,  the  '  good  book,' 
Avhich  Milton  calls  '  an  immortaUty  rather  than  a 
life,'  is  dead  to  them  :  it  is  a  book  sealed  up  and 
buried." 

And  just  here,  even  at  the  risk  of  repeating 
what  has  been  said  before,  in  this  series  of  chap- 
ters, I  want  to  quote  some  words  of  the  German 
pessimistic  philosopher  Schopenhaiier :  "  It  is  the 
case  with  literature  as  with  life ;  wherever  we 
turn  we  come  upon  the  incorrigible  mob  of 
humankind,  whose  name  is  Legion,  swarming 
everywhere,  damaging  everything,  as  flies  in 
summer.  Hence  the  multiphcity  of  bad  books, 
those  exuberant  w^eeds  of  literature  w^hich  choke 
the  true  corn.  Such  books  rob  the  public  of 
time,  money,  and  attention,  which  ought  proper- 
ly to  belong  to  good  literature  and  noble  aims, 
and  they  are  written  with  a  view  merely  to  make 


64  The  Choice  of  Books, 

money  or  occupation.  They  are  therefore  not 
merely  useless,  but  injurious.  Nine-tenths  of  our 
current  literature  has  no  other  end  but  to  in- 
veigle a  thaler  or  two  out  of  the  public  pocket, 
for  which  purpose  author/  pubUsher  and  printer ' 
are  leagued  together.  A  more  pernicious,  sub- 
tler, and  bolder  piece  of  trickery  is  that  by  which 
penny-a-liners  and  scribblers  succeed  in  destroy- 
ing good  taste  and  real  culture Hence, 

the  paramount  importance  of  acquiring  the  art 
not  to  read  ;  in  other  words,  of  not  reading  such 
books  as  occupy  the  pubhc  mind,  or  even  those 
which  make  a  noise  in  the  world,  and  reach  sev- 
eral editions  in  their  first  and  last  years  of  exis- 
tence. We  should  recollect  that  he  who  writes 
for  fools  finds  an  enormous  audience,  and  we 
should  devote  the  ever  scant  leisure  of  our  cir- 
cumscribed existence  to  the  master  spirits  of  all 
ages  and  nations,  those  who  tower  over  human- 
ity, and  whom  the  voice  of  Fame  proclaims : 
only  such  writers  cultivate  and  instruct  us.  Of 
bad  books  we  can  never  read  too  little  ;  of  the 
good  never  too  much.  The  bad  are  intellectual 
poison  and  undermine  the  understanding.  Be- 
cause people  insist  on  reading  not  the  best 
books  written  for  all  time,  but  the  newest  con- 


How  Much  to  Read.  65 

temporary  literature,  writers  of  the  day  remain 
in  the  narrow  circle  of  the  same  perpetually  re- 
volving ideas,  and  the  age  continues  to  wallow 
in  its  own  mire Mere  acquired  know- 
ledge belongs  to  us  only  like  a  wooden  leg  and 
wax  nose.  Knowledge  attained  by  means  of 
thinking  resembles  our  natural  limbs,  and  is  the 
only  kind  that  really  belongs  to  us.  Hence  the 
difference  between  the  thinker  and  the  pedant. 
The  intellectual  possession  of  the  independent 
thinker  is  like  a  beautiful  picture  which  stands 
before  us,  a  living  thing  with  fitting  light  and 
shadow,  sustained  tones,  perfect  harmony  of 
color.  That  of  the  merely  learned  man  may  be 
compared  to  a  palette  covered  with  bright  col- 
ors, perhaps  even  arranged  with  some  system, 
but  wanting  in  harmony,  coherence  and  mean- 
ing  Onl}^  those  writers  profit  us  whose 

understanding  is  quicker,  more  lucid  than  our 
own,  by  whose  brain  we  indeed  think  for  a  time, 
who  quicken  our  thoughts,  and  lead  us  whither 
alone  we  could  not  find  our  way." 

When  one  perceives  that  he  is  turning  page 

alter  page  without  noting  what  is  printed  there- 

(  n,  without  reflecting  on  the  information  afforded 

him  or  without  knowing  why  he  is  reading  at 

3 


66  The   Choice  of  Books. 

all,  it  is  time  for  him  to  stop,  whether  he  has  read 
one  page  or  one  thousand.  We  take  it  for 
granted,  as  was  urged  in  a  previous  chapter,  that 
every  wise  reader  will  determine  first  of  all  why 
he  has  chosen  a  particular  book :  whether  for 
instruction,  or  guidance,  or  warning,  or  mere 
amusement.  In  any  case — and  this  remark  ap- 
phes  to  books  taken  up  for  amusement  and  rec- 
reation, as  well  as  to  the  gravest  history  or  the 
most  abstruse  mathematical  treatise — when  the 
book  ceases  to  perform  its  legitimate  function,  it 
is  time  to  lay  it  down  and  engage  in  some  other 
occupation.  "  Do  not  read  too  much  at  a  time," 
says  Edward  E.  Hale  ;  "  stop  when  you  are  tired, 
and  in  whatever  w^ay  make  some  review  of  what 
you  read,  even  as  you  go  along."  Here,  as  in 
every  other  division  of  the  general  subject,  the 
duty  of  attention  to  purpose  should  ever  be  borne' 
in  mind.  If  your  purpose  is  to  learn,  read  just 
enough  to  learn ;  if  to  rest  your  mind,  read  just 
enough  to  do  that.  When  a  history  becomes 
a  tiresome  burden,  or  a  biography  but  an  idle 
amusement,  or  a  novel  a  burdensome  task,  then 
you  may  be  quite  sure  that  you  have  read  too 
much. 

Some  persons  read  both  too  much  and  too 


Haw  Much  to  Read,  67 

little ;  they  handle  a  great  many  volumes  on  a 
vast  number  of  topics,  but  having  failed  to  as- 
similate what  they  have  read,  they  feel  at  last 
the  dearth  that  comes  from  a  dissipation  of 
power.  "  There  is  a  great  deal  too  much  read- 
ing at  random,"  says  the  Boston  Literary  World  ; 
"  of  this  book  to-day,  and  of  that  to-morrow, 
with  no  careful  method  governing  the  selection, 
and  no  high  purpose  gathering  up  the  results 
into  a  definite  good.  One  cannot  read  all  the 
books  that  are  published  ;  one  cannot  even  know 
by  name  the  books  that  have  been  written ;  the 
only  possible  achievement  is  to  adopt  some  eclec- 
tic system  and  abide  by  it  rigorously ;  to  do  a 
little  reading  upon  a  few  choice  topics,  and  do  it 
thoroughly  and  well."  The  same  adviser  goes 
on  to  urge  that  "  it  is  an  excellent  way  to  fix 
upon  same  epoch  in  history,  or  some  noted  figure 
in  biography,  or  some  important  department  of 
science  and  art ;  and  to  govern  one's  reading  by 
its  requirements.  Concentrate  fact,  fiction  and 
fancy  all  upon  the  theme  ;  illuminate  all  parts  of 
it  by  every  aid  that  can  be  brought  to  bear  upon 
it,  and  make  it  a  fife  work  to  master  it  in  all  its 
aspects  and  relations.  Such  a  course  will  give 
constant  interest  to  a  pursuit  which  even  with 


68  The  Choice  of  Books, 

those  who  are  fondest  of  it  may  sometimes  flag ; 
it  will  economize  thought  and  time  ;  and  it  will 
enrich  the  mind  w^ith  the  best  fruits  of  study." 
Bishop  Potter  advises  the  same  method  :  "  Study 
subjects  rather  than  books ;  therefore  compare 
different  authors  on  the  same  subjects  ;  the  state- 
ments of  authors,  with  information  collected  from 
other  sources,  and  the  conclusions  drawm  by  a 
writer,  with  the  rules  of  sound  logic."  Should 
one  thus  regulate  his  time  for  intellectual  work, 
he  would  find  that  any  essential  or  habitual  de- 
viation from  this  plan  would  be,  so  far  as  the  plan 
is  concerned,  a  waste  of  time,  and  an  overplus  of 
reading.  If  one  is  determined  to  read  Green's 
''  Short  History  of  the  Enghsh  People,"  for  in- 
stance, he  is  reading  too  much  if  he  sits  up  half 
the  night  to  finish  the  last  novel  of  Mr.  Howells 
or  Thomas  Hardy.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is 
preparing  for  a  village  reading-club  a  careful 
analysis  of  the  general  method  of  Mr.  Howells 
or  Mr.  Hardy  as  a  novehst,  he  will  be  reading 
too  much  if  he  gives  himself  a  *'  stint "  of  two 
hundred  of  Green's  pages  in  a  day.  What  under 
certain  circumstances  would  be  praiseworthy 
and  advantageous,  under  others  is  blameworthy 
and  injurious. 


How  Much  to  Read.  69 

In  this  connection  a  word  should  be  said  con- 
cerning re-reading.  Luther  says:  "All  who 
would  study  with  advantage,  in  any  art  whatso- 
ever, ought  to  betake  himself  to  the  reading  of 
some  sure  and  certain  books  oftentimes  over ;  for 
to  read  many  books  produceth  confusion,  rather 
than  learning,  like  as  those  who  dwell  every- 
where are  not  anywhere  at  home."  It  is  well  to 
re-read  good  books  ;  almost  every  one  has  a 
favorite  author  or  authors,  to  whom  he  turns 
with  constant  delight  and  profit,  and  the  habit  of 
a  second,  or  third,  or  fourth  reading  of  a  good 
book,  or  chapter  of  a  book,  greatly  aids  the  un- 
derstanding and  the  memory.  But  this  habit 
may  easily  be  carried  too  far.  We  must  forget 
something, — much.  God  has  so  ordered  our 
mental  powers,  and  it  is  useless  and  wicked  for 
us  to  quarrel  with  the  ordering.  Therefore  we 
should  not  attempt  to  read  a  few  books  constant- 
1}^,  to  the  entire  or  virtual  neglect  of  others. 
There  are  too  many  noble  volumes  that  we  must 
leave  untouched,  at  the  best.  Read  carefully  and 
thoughtfully,  and  re-read  wisely;  but  do  liot 
lament  unduly  your  failures  of  memory,  nor 
strive  to  correct  them  by  excessive  devotion  to 
one  little  niche  in  the  wide  cathedral  of  litera- 
ture. 


70  The   Choice  of  Books. 

In  closing  this  chapter  of  advice  concerning 
the  proper  amount  of  reading,  strong  words  of 
counsel  are  needed  to  two  classes — those  who 
would  cram  their  own  minds  and  the  minds  of 
others,  even  to  the  ultimate  result  of  mental  and 
physical  injury,  insanity  or  death  ;  and  those  on 
the  other  extreme,  who  do  not  need  the  least 
advice  concerning  the  limitation  of  their  read 
ing,  for  the  very  good  reason  that  they  never 
read  at  all. 

Of  the  evils  of  intellectual  cramming,  let  these 
grave  words  of  Herbert  Spencer,  apphcable  alike 
to  young  and  old,  speak  with  unmistakable  em- 
phasis :  "  On  old  and  young  the  pressure  of 
modern  life  puts  a  still  increasing  strain.  Go 
where  you  will,  and  before  long  there  come  under 
your  notice  cases  of  children  or  youths  of  either 
sex  more  or  less  injured  by  undue  study.  Here, 
to  recover  from  a  state  of  debility  thus  produced, 
a  year's  rustication  has  been  found  necessary. 
There,  you  find  a  chronic  congestion  of  the  brain 
that  has  already  lasted  many  months,  and  threat- 
ens to  last  much  longer.  Now  you  hear  of  a 
fever  that  resulted  from  the  over-excitement  in 
some  way  brought  on  at  school.  And  again  the 
instance  is  that  of  a  youth  who  has  already  had 


How  Much  to  Read.  71 

once  to  desist  from  his  studies,  and  who,  since  he 
has  returned  to  them,  is  frequently  taken  out  of 
his  class  in  a  fainting  fit.  We  state  facts — facts 
that  have  not  been  sought  for,  but  have  been 
thrust  upon  our  observation  during  the  last  two 
years,  and  that  too  within  a  very  limited  range. 
Nor  have  we  by  any  means  exhausted  the  list. 
Quite  recently  we  had  the  opportunity  of  mark- 
ing how  the  evil  becomes  hereditary,  the  case 
being  that  of  a  lady  of  robust  parentage  whose 
system  was  so  injured  by  the  regime  of  a  Scotch 
boarding-school,  where  she  was  underfed  and 
overworked,  that  she  invariably  suffers  from  ver- 
tigo on  rising  in  the  morning,  and  whose  chil- 
dren, inheriting  this  enfeebled  brain,  are  several 
of  them  unable  to  bear  even  a  moderate  amount 
of  study  without  headache  or  giddiness.  At  the 
present  time  we  have  daily  under  our  eyes  a 
young  lady  whose  system  has  been  damaged  for 
life  by  the  college  course  through  which  she  has 
passed.  Taxed  as  she  was  to  such  an  extent  that 
she  had  no  energy  left  for  exercise,  she  is,  now 
that  she  has  finished  her  ecTucation,  a  constant 
complainant.  Appetite  small  and  very  capric- 
ious, mostly  refusing  meat ;  extremities  perpetu- 
ally cold,  even   when  the  weather  is  warm ;  a 


72  The  Choice  of  Books, 

feebleness  which  forbids  anything  but  the  slow- 
est walking,  and  that  only  for  a  short  time ;  pal- 
pitation on  going  upstairs  ;  greatly  impaired  vis- 
ion— these,  joined  with  checked  growth  and  lax 
tissue,  are  among  the  results  entailed.  And  to 
her  case  we  may  add  that  of  her  friend  and  fel- 
low-student, who  is  similarly  weak,  who  is  liable 
to  faint  even  under  the  excitement  of  a  quiet 
party  of  friends,  and  who  has  at  length  been 
obliged  by  her  medical  attendant  to  desist  from 
study  entirely.  If  injuries  so  conspicuous  are 
thus  frequent,  how  very  general  must  be  the 
smaller  and  inconspicuous  injuries.  To  one  case 
where  positive  illness  is  directly  traceable  to 
over-apphcation,  there  are  probably  at  least  half 
a  dozen  cases  where  the  evil  is  unobtrusive  and 
slowly  accumulating — cases  where  there  is  fre- 
quent derangement  of  the  functions,  attributed 
to  this  or  that  special  cause,  or  to  constitutional 
delicacy ;  cases  where  there  is  retardation  and 
premature  arrest  of  bodily  growth  ;  cases  where 
a  latent  tendency  to  consumption  is  brought  out 
and  established ;  cases  where  a  predisposition  is 
given  to  that  now  common  cerebral  disorder 
brought  on  by  the  hard  work  of  adult  life.  How 
commonly  constitutions  are  thus    undermined, 


Hcnv  Much  to  Read,  fz 

will  be  clear  to  all  who,  after  noting  the  frequent 
ailments  of  hard-worked  professional  and  mer- 
cantile men,  will  reflect  on  the  disastrous  effects 
which  undue  application  must  produce  upon 
the  undeveloped  systems  of  the  young.  The 
young  are  competent  to  bear  neither  as  much 
hardship,  nor  as  much  physical  exertion,  nor  as 
much  mental  exertion,  as  the  full  grown.  Judge, 
then,  if  the  full  grown  so  manifestly  suffer  from 
the  excessive  mental  exertion  required  of  them, 
how  great  must  be  the  damage  which  a  mental 
exertion,  often  equally  excessive,  inflicts  upon  the 
young!" 

And  on  the  other  side,  I  would  that  these  true 
words  of  two  eminent  English  educators  could 
at  least  be  read  aloud,  if  no  more,  in  the  hearing 
of  those  who  will  not  read  for  themselves.  R. 
H.  Quick,  after  quoting  Mark  Pattison's  state- 
ment that  "  the  dearth  of  books  is  only  the  out- 
ward and  visible  sign  of  the  mental  torpor  which 
reigns  in  those  destitute  regions," — the  middle- 
class  homes  of  England, — goes  on  to  say :  "  I 
much  doubt  if  he  would  find  more  books  in  the 
middle-class  homes  of  the  Continent.  There  is 
only  one  kind  of  reading  that  is  nearly  universal 
— ^the  reading  of  newspapers ;   and  the  news- 


74  The  Choice  of  Books, 

paper  lacks  the  element  of  permanence,  and  be- 
longs to  the  domain  of  talk  rather  than  of  litera- 
ture. Even  when  we  get  among  the  so-called 
*  educated,'  we  find  that  those  who  care  for  litera- 
ture form  a  very  small  minority.  The  rest  have 
of  course  read  Shakespeare  and  Milton  and  Wal- 
ter Scott  and  Tennyson,  but  they  do  not  read 
them.  The  lion's  share  of  our  time  and  thoughts 
and  interests  must  be  given  to  our  business  or 
profession,  whatever  that  may  be ;  and  in  few 
instances  is  this  connected  with  literature.  For 
the  rest,  whatever  time  or  thought  a  man  can 
spare  from  his  calling  is  mostly  given  to  his  fam- 
ily, or  to  society,  or  to  some  hobby  which  is  not 
literature.  And  love  of  literature  is  not  seen  in 
such  reading  as  is  common.  The  literary  spirit 
shows  itself,  as  I  said,  in  appreciating  beauty  of 
expression ;  and  how  far  beauty  of  expression  is 
cared  for  we  may  estimate  from  the  fact  that  few 
people  think  of  reading  anything  a  second  time. 
The  ordinary  reader  is  profoundly  indifferent 
about  style,  and  will  not  take  the  trouble  to 
understand  ideas.  -He  keeps  to  periodicals  or 
light  fiction,  which  enables  the  mind  to  loll  in  its 
easy  chair  (so  to  speak),  and  see  pass  before  it  a 
series  of  pleasing  images.    An  idea,  as   Mark 


How  Much  to  Read.  7$ 

Pattison  says,  is  an  excitant,  comes  from  mind 
and  calls  forth  mind  ;  an  image  is  a  sedative ; 
and  most  people,  when  they  take  ud  a  book,  are 
seeking  a  sedative/* 


7,6  The  Choice  of  Books, 


REMEMBERING  WHAT  ONE  READS. 

Scarcely  anything  is  more  annoying  to  readers 
than  the  fact  that  they  forget  so  much  of  what 
they  read.  In  history,  dates  and  names  pass 
from  the  mind  ;  poems  once  known  by  heart  fade 
away  from  recollection ;  and  the  characters,  the 
plots,  or  perhaps  the  very  titles  of  stories  which 
were  once  familiar  depart  as  utterly  as  though 
they  had  never  been  known  at  all. 

In  connection  with  this  question  of  the  reten- 
tion or  non-retention  of  what  one  reads,  it  should 
never  be  forgotten,  as  was  remarked  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  that  God  has  evidently  arranged 
the  powers  of  the  human  mind  in  such  a  way 
that  we  must  forget  a  great  deal,  however  care- 
fully we  strive  to  remember  all  we  can.  A  large 
part  of  our  knowledge,  too,  is  to  be  considered 
as  nutriment,  or  as  intellectual  exercise  ;  and  we 
should  no  more  lament  its  loss  than  because  we 
do  not  remember  what  we  had  for  breakfast  a 
year  ago  to-day,  or  the  exact  length  of  the  in- 
vigorating walk  we  took  on  that  breezy  morn- 
ing, week  before  last.     Some  books  are  by  no 


Remembering    What  One  Reads,       77 

means  read  without  profit  if  a  part,  or  even  the 
whole,  of  them  be  forgotten  beyond  recall.  And 
it  is  a  consolation  to  reflect  that  the  very  best 
use  to  which  some  of  our  past  reading  can  be 
put  is  to  be  forgotten  as  speedily  as  possible. 
If  we  have  lost  some  things  that  were  good  and 
pleasant,  we  have  luckily  blotted  from  our  minds 
not  a  little  that  was  noxious  and  unattractive. 

But  a  "  poor  memory  "  is  a  thing  that  can  be 
materially  strengthened ;  and  after  all  reserva- 
tions have  been  made,  we  should  not  forget  the 
duty  of  remembering  all  we  really  ought  to  re- 
member, so  far  as  the  natural  powers  of  our  minds 
permit.  The  first  and  the  last  aid  to  a  memory 
is  a  habit  of  paying  strict  attention  to  what  we 
read.  "  Special  efforts  should  be  made  to  retain 
what  is  gathered  from  reading,"  says  President 
Porter,  "  if  any  such  efforts  are  required.  Some 
persons  read  with  an  interest  so  wakeful  and 
responsive,  and  an  attention  so  fixed  and  ener- 
getic, as  to  need  no  appliances  and  no  efforts  in 
order  to  retain  what  they  read.  They  look  upon 
a  page  and  it  is  imprinted  upon  the  memory.  .  . 
But  there  are  others  who  read  only  to  lose  and 
to  forget.  Facts  and  truths,  words  and  thoughts, 
are  alike  evanescent.     We  shall  not  attempt  to 


78  The  Choice  of  Books. 

explain  here  the  nature  of  these  differences.  We 
are  concerned  only  to  devise  the  remedy  ;  we 
insist  that  those  who  labor  under  these  difficul- 
ties should  use  special  appliances  to  avoid  or 
overcome  them.  But  that  upon  which  we  insist 
most  of  all,  is  that  what  we  read  we  should  seek 
to  make  our  own,  only  in  the  manner  and  after 
the  measure  of  which  we  are  capable."  Presi- 
dent Porter  then  goes  on  to  advise  each  reader 
to  follow  his  natural  bent  and  aptitudes  ;  not  to 
worry,  if  he  has  not  a  good  verbal  memory,  over 
his  inabihty  to  remember  choice  phrases  or 
striking  stanzas,  nor  to  vex-  his  soul  over  his  fail- 
ure to  retain  names  and  dates.  "  When  a  man 
reads,"  he  says,  "he  should  put  himself  into  the 
most  intimate  intercourse  with  his  author,  so 
that  all  his  energies  of  apprehension,  judgment 
and  feeling  may  be  occupied  with,  and  aroused 
by,  what  his  author  furnishes,  whatever  it  may 
be.  If  repetition  or  review  will  aid  him  in  this, 
as  it  often  will,  let  him  not  disdain  or  neglect 
frequent  reviews.  If  the  use  of  the  pen,  in  brief 
or  full  notes,  in  catch-words  or  other  S3^mbols, 
will  aid  him,  let  him  not  shrink  from  the  drudg- 
ery of  the  pen.  and  the  commonplace  book.  .  .  . 
But  there  is   no    charm    or    efficacv    in  such 


Remembering    What  One  Reads,        79 

mechanism  by  itself.  It  is  only  valuable  as  a 
means  to  an  end,  and  that  end  is  to  quicken  the 
intellectual  energies  by  arousing  and  holding  the 
attention."  ''  What  a  man  wants  for  himself  in 
memory,"  says  a  writer  in  Blackwood's  Maga- 
zine, "  is  not  a  master-power  but  a  servant :  the 
memory  that  keeps  his  past  of  learning  and  ex- 
perience alive  in  him ;  one  recognized  not  as 
itself  but  by  results." 

Hamerton  has  expressed  an  opinion  that  what 
is  called  a  '*  defective  memory  "  is  by  no  means 
an  unmixed  evil.  He  says  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  a  "  selecting  memory,  which  is  not  only  useful 
for  what  it  retains,  but  for  what  it  rejects." 
What  really  interests  us,  we  can  usually  retain 
without  recourse  to  any  elaborate  system  of 
mnemonics.  That  which  does  not  properly 
interest  us  we  cannot  thus  retain.  "  Had  Goethe 
been  a  poor  student,"  says  Mr.  Hamerton, 
"  bound  down  to  the  exclusive  legal  studies, 
which  did  not  greatly  interest  him,  it  is  likely 
that  no  one  would  ever  have  suspected  his 
immense  faculty  of  assimilation.  In  this  way 
men  who  are  set  by  others  to  load  their  memo- 
ries with  what  is  not  their  proper  intellectual 
food,  never  get  the  credit  of  having  any  memory 


8o  The  Choice  of  Books, 

at  all,  and  end  by  themselves  believing  that  they 
have  none.  These  bad  memories  are  often  the 
best ;  the)^  are  often  the  selecting  memories. 
They  seldom  win  distinction  in  examinations; 
but  in  literature  and  art.  They  are  quite  incom- 
parably superior  to  the  miscellaneous  memories 
that  receive  only  as  boxes  and  drawers  receive 
what  is  put  into  them.  A  good  hterary  or 
artistic  memory  is  nc^t  like  a  postToihce  that  takes 
in  everything,  but  like  a  very  well  edited  period- 
ical which  prints  nothing  that  does  not  harmon- 
ize with  its  intellectual  life." 

I  fully  believe  in  training  and  disciplining  and 
developing  the  memory.  But  I  also  believe  that 
the  very  essence  of  that  training  is  the  cultiva- 
tion of  a  habit  of  friendliness,  kinship,  and  inti- 
macy with  the  printed  page.  Mere  mnemonic  de- 
vices, says  the  wise  writer  from  whom  I  have  just 
quoted,  are  like  tying  a  frying-pan  to  one  coat- 
tail  and  a  child's  kite  to  another.  The  true  art 
of  memory  is  the  art  of  perceiving  the  relations 
and  uses  of  things,  not  their  external  character- 
istics ;  and  above  all,  not  their  artificial  relations 
to  some  essentially  foreign  object  or  symbol. 
The  purpose  of  memory  is  to  help  us ;  when  a 
memory-machine  fails  to  help  us,  and  cumbers 


Remembermg    What  One  Reads,       8i 

and  overshadows  that  which  it  pretends  to  aid, 
it  is  worse  than  Avorthless. 

Again,  it  should  be  kept  in  mind  that  no  one 
brain  has  a  right  to  tyrannize  over  another,  or 
to  lay  down  laws  for  it,  in  this  matter  of  mem- 
ory. For  instance,  I  myself  remember  instinct- 
ively, and  without  effort,  the  name  of  the 
author,  pubhsher,  and  printer  of  whatever  book 
I  take  in  my  hand,  and  also  its  size,  shape,  color 
of  binding,  and  style  of  typography..  Two  or 
three  readings  of  a  college  catalogue  leave  upon 
my  mind  the  surnames.  Christian  names,  and 
residences  of  a  majority  of  the  persons  there 
recorded.  Guide  books  and  city  directories  are 
a  rest  and  recreation  to  me  ;  the  names,  locations, 
and  pastors  of  the  majority  of  all  the  churches 
in  the  cities  I  have  visited  are  retained  in  mind 
without  effort;  and  frequently,  when  visiting  a 
town  for  the  first  time,  this  habit  of  memory 
leads  me  to  be  considered  a  local  antiquary  and 
specialist.  Now,  these  things  seem  so  natural 
to  me,  and  are  acquired  so  absolutely  without 
effort  of  any  kind,  that  I  can  hardly  understand 
why  ever}^  one  else  does  not  remember  them 
equally  well.  But  I  have  not  the  slightest  right 
to  prescribe  a   course  of  guide-books,   college 


82  The   Choice  of  Books. 

catalogues,  or  city  directories  for  others,  anj 
more  than  they  have  to  demand  that  I  recite 
Coleridge's  "  Ancient  Mariner,"  or  give  the  dates 
of  the  Third  Punic  War,  or  the  signing  of  the 
Magna  Charta,  or  Braddock's  defeat,  which  I 
remember  with  as  much  difficulty  as  any  reader 
of  this  chapter.  In  other  words,  no  one  has  a 
right  to  insist  that  another  person  shall  remem- 
ber as  or  what  he  himself  remembers.  But  it 
should  always  be  demanded  of  every  reader  that 
he  conscientiously  try  to  strengthen  his  memory 
by  seeking  to  understand  the  nature  and  purpose 
of  what  he  reads,  its  serviceableness  to  himself, 
and  to  the  world  through  him,  and  its  relations 
to  his  particular  mental  constitution  and  his  wise 
intellectual  regimen. 

This  diversity  of  memories  is  admirably  stated 
by  Cardinal  Newman.  "  We  can,"  he  says, 
"form  an  abstract  idea  of  memory,  and  call  it 
one  facult}^  which  has  for  its  subject-matter  all 
past  facts  of  our  personal  experience  ;  but  this  is 
really  only  an  illusion  ;  for  there  is  no  such  gift  of 
universal  memory.  Of  course  we  all  remember 
in  a  way  as  we  reason,  in  all  subject-matters; 
but  I  am  speaking  of  remembering  rightl}^,  as  I 
spoke  of  reasoning  rightly.     In  real  fact,  mem- 


Remembering    What  One  Reads,        83 

ory,  as  a  talent,  is  not  one  indivisible  faculty,  but 
a  power  of  retaining  and  recalling-  the  past  in 
this  or  that  department  of  our  experience,  not  in 
any  whatever.  Two  memories,  which  are  both 
specially  retentive,  may  also  be  incommensurate. 
Some  men  can  recite  the  canto  of  a  poem,  or 
good  part  of  a  speech,  after  once  reading  it,  but 
have  no  head  for  dates.  Others  have  great 
capacity  for  the  vocabulary  of  languages,  but 
recollect  nothing  of  the  small  occurrences  of  the 
day  or  year.  Others  never  forget  any  statement 
which  they  have  read,  and  can  give  volume  and 
page,  but  have  no  memory  for  faces.  I  have 
known  those  who  could,  without  effo;-t,  run 
through  the  succession  of  days  on  which  Easter 
fell  for  years  back ;  or  could  say  where  they 
were,  or  what  they  were  doing,  on  a  given  day 
in  a  given  year  ;  or  could  recollect  the  Christian 
names  of  friends  and  strangers;  or  could  enu- 
merate in  exact  order  the  names  on  all  the  shops 
from  Hyde  Park  corner  to  the  Bank  ;  or  had  so 
mastered  the  University  Calendar  as  to  be  able 
to  bear  an  examination  in  the  academical  history 
of  any  M.  A.  taken  at  random.  And  I  believe 
in  most  of  these  cases  the  talent,  in  its  excep- 
tional character,  did  not  extend  beyond  several 


^4  The  Choice  of  Books, 

classes  of  subjects.     There  are  a  hundred  mem^ 
ories  as  there  are  a  hundred  virtues." 


The   Use  of  Note-Books,  85 


THE  USE  OF  NOTE-BOOKS. 

A  SEPARATE  chapter  on  the  use  of  note-books 
would  hardly  be  necessary,  in  this  series  of  papers 
on  right  methods  of  reading,  were  it  not  that 
many  people  so  misapprehend  the  real  service  of 
note-books,  and  make  them  a  burden  rather  than 
a  help.  Note-books,  like  all  other  aids  to  read- 
ing and  reflection,  and  the  utilization  of  knowl- 
edge, should  be  valued  for  the  true  assistance 
they  may  render,  and  for  that  alone.  "But  it 
very  often  happens  that  one  who  is  beginning  to 
read  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  method  in 
reading,  especially  in  the  preservation  of  its 
results,  is  the  one  thing  essential,  and  that  nothing 
is  so  useful,  toward  this  end,  as  an  elaborate 
note-book  system.  Therefore  he  purchases  a 
large  alphabetized  blank-book,  and  having  begun 
to  read  "  Taine's  English  Literature,"  let  us  say, 
he  makes  elaborate  entries  of  matters  contained 
in  the  first  few  chapters.  But  as  his  note-book 
must  also  record  everything  that  impresses  him' 
as  likely  to  have  any  future  usefulness,  he  sets 
down  with  equal  painstaking  the  leading  points 


36  The  Choice  of  Books* 

of  an  article  in  the  last  Atlantic  Monthly,  or 
copies  entire  an  interesting-  paragraph  from  the 
Springfield  Republican.  After  a  few  days,  or 
perhaps  weeks,  he  finds  it  inconvenient  to  hunt 
up  note-book,  pen,  and  ink,  every  time  he  takes 
a  volume  in  his  hand,  and  so  he  gradually  lessens 
the  number  of  entries ;  and  thus  the  book  soon 
becomes  an  unserviceable  and  unused  chronicle 
of  a  few  straggling  facts, — to  be  remanded  to  the 
closet  shelf,  or  to  be  cut  up,  at  last,  for  scribbling 
paper.  In  the  end,  such  a  note-book  becomes  a 
weight  and  an  incumbrance  upon  the  reading 
habit,  rather  than  a  helper  to  it. 

A  note-book,  then,  should  be  started  upon  a 
plan  too  modest  rather  than  too  ambitious,  and 
should  never  be  allowed  to  get  above  the  hum- 
ble place  of  a  servant.  One  little  blank  book, 
costing  a  dime,  is  far  more  useful,  if  employed 
only  for  the  entry  of  important  references  or 
memoranda,  and  such  only,  than  the  most  elabo- 
rate index  rerum  or  commonplace-book,  if  made 
too  cumbersome  to  be  of  real  service.  And  it  is 
generally  true  that  a  note-book  should  follow  the 
reading  habit,  rather  than  precede  it.  If  you 
have  not  done  something  toward  filling  your 
brain  first,  do  not  expect  to  make  up  the  defi- 
ciency by  your  note-book  entries. 


The   Use  of  Note- Books,  87 

Some  readers  and  writers  make  little  use  of 
note-books,  and  some  find  them  extremely  ser- 
viceable.    W.A.  Hovey,  the  editor  of  the  Bos- 
ton   Evening    Transcript,    says   in    one   of    his 
*'  Causerie  "  papers :  ''  The  brain  is  the  best  and 
most  rehable  memorandum  book;  it  is  always 
at  hand,  use  enlarges' its  capacity  and  increases 
its  usefulness  and  reliability,  and  no  one  can  read 
it  but  its  owner."     I  must  say  that  for  one,  I 
quite  agree  with  Mr.  Hovey ;  finding  all  sorts 
of  memorandum  books  of  little  use  to  me,  and 
employing  nothing  more  than  the  most  inexpen- 
sive  pocket  blank-books,  to  be  torn  up   when 
their  usefulness  has  passed  ;  or  now  and  then  a 
series  of  envelopes,  with  their  special  subjects 
written  upon  them.     But  in  this  matter,  no  one 
reader  can  lay  down  the  law  for  another.    Some 
of  the  wisest  of  American  authors-  have  pursued 
to  the  fullest  extent  the  plan  of  using  note-books 
all  their  lives,  and  w4th  adm.irable  results.     Mr. 
Emerson's    note-books   are    famous    the   world 
over,  and  it  is  said,  doubtless  with  entire  truth, 
that  some  of  his  most  renowned  essays  are  little 
more  than  transcripts  of  them.     His  entries  of 
course  include  his  own  conclusions  and  reflec- 
tions as  well  as  those  of  others.     It  was  my  good 


88  The  Choice  of  Books, 

fortune  to  be  permitted  to  see,  some  years  ago^ 
the  remarkable  and  substantially  similar  methods 
by  which  two  other  American  authors — A, 
Bronson  Alcott  and  Ray  Palmer — have  pre 
served  well-nigh  the  entire  body  of  the  letters 
they  have  received  in  the  whole  course  of  their 
literary  lives.  In  both  cases  these  valuable 
libraries  of  correspondence  reach  to  a  long  file 
of  volumes  ;  and  Mr.  Alcott  has  combined  with 
his  a  diary  of  each  day's  events  for  a  lifetime. 
Such  collections  as  these  are  in  a  true  sense 
monumental,  and  amount,  at  length,  to  valuable 
contributions  to  the  intellectual  history  of  the 
time.  Mr.  Beecher  does  not  use  note-books 
himself,  but  advises  young  men  to  get  into  the 
habit  of  using  them.  *'  The  great  point,"  says 
he,  "is  to  read  nothing  without  reflection." 

The  late  WiUiam  B.  Reed,  one  of  the  best 
American  writers  of  purely  literary  essays,  says 
of  the  right  use  of  quotation  books  :  "  As  in 
every  house,  we  are  told,  there  is  a  skeleton,  and 
in  every  doctor's  shop  a  case  of  instruments  for 
emergencies,  mysteriously  veiled  from  vulgar 
gaze,  so  in  all  libraries,  and  especially  if  it  be  one 
of  a  Avriter  or  public  speaker,  are  there  corners 
where  are  put  away  for  convenient  use,  not  only 


The  .  Use  of  Note- Books,  89 

commonplace-books,  happily  out  of  date,  but 
indexes  rerum,  and  '  Burton's  Anatomy,'  and 
'  Murray's  Handbooks  for  Geographical  Illus- 
tration,' and  lexicons  and  concordances  (all 
honors  to'those  immortal  C's,  Cruden  and  Mrs. 
Cowden  Clarke),  a  thesaurus  or  two,  and  finally 
'dictionaries  of  quotations.'  It  depends  very 
much  upon  their  nature  whether  such  diction- 
aries are  good  or  bad.  The  young  student  uses 
them,  and  for  this  end  they  were  first  devised,  to 
furnish  him  with  quotations  with  which  to 
garnish  what  he  writes,  and  show  his  scholar- 
ship. This  is  spurious.  It  is,  the  poet  tells  us, 
the  page  of  knowledge  which  is  '  rich  with  the 
spoils  of  time.'  It  is  out  of  the  depths  of  a  full 
mind  that  bright  literary  illustrations  bubble  up 
to  the  surface,  and  any  critical  eye  can  detect 
without  fail  a  got-up  quotation,  or  one  which  a 
mere  dictionary  supplies.  Not  so  the  '  diction- 
ary,' as  it  were,  which  aids  memory,  and,  given 
a  fragment  or  sometimes  even  a  word,  enables 
the  scholar  to  find  the  context.  They  are  not 
merely  valuable,  but,  as  auxiliaries,  they  are 
essential  to  complete  literary  work.  So  it  is 
with  written  note-books;  they  cannot  take  the 
place  of  thought ;  but  they  can  strengthen  and 
arm  it." 


90  The  Choice  of  Books, 

Professor  W.  P.  Atkinson,  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Institute  of  Technology,  speaks  warmly  of 
the  use  of  note-books,  in  his  published  lecture 
on  reading.  ''  I  cannot  close,"  says  he,  "without 
giving  you  one  little  piece  of  purely  practical 
advice.  I  advise  you  all  to  become  what  I  am 
myself,  a  devoted  disciple  of  Captain  Cuttle,  and 
to  bind,  on  your  brows,  his  admirable  maxim, 
'When  found,  make  a  note  of.'  Witty  old 
Thomas  Fuller  says :  '  Adventure  not  all  thy 
learning  in  one  bottom,  but  divide  it  between 

thy    memory    and    thy    note-books A 

commonplace  book  contains  many  notions  in 
garrison,  whence  an  owner  may  draw  out  an 
army  into  the  field  on  competent  warning.'  This 
is  one  of  those  notions  which  I  have  kept  in  the 
garrison  of  my  note-book  for  many  years.  The 
great  secret  of  reading  consists  in  this,  that  it 
does  not  matter  so  much  what  we  read  or  how 
we  read  it,  as  what  Ave  think  and  how  we  think 
it.  Reading  is  only  the  fuel ;  and,  the  mind 
once  on  fire,  any  and  all  material  will  feed  the 
flame,  provided  only  it  have  any  combustible 
matter  in  it.  And  we  cannot  tell  from  what 
quarter  the  next  material  will  come.  The 
thought  we  need,  the  facts  we  are  in  search  of, 


The   Use  of  Note- Books.  91 

may  make  their  appearance  in  the  corner  of  the 
newspaper,  or  in  some  forgotten  volume  long 
ago  consigned  to  dust  and  oblivion.  Hawthorne, 
in  the  parlor  of  a  country  inn,  on  a  rainy  day, 
could  find  mental  nutriment  in  an  old  directory. 
That  accomplished  philologist,  the  late  Lord 
Strangford,  could  find  ample  amusement  for  an 
hour's  delay  at  a  railway  station  in  tracing  out 
the  etymology  of  the  names  in  Bradshaw.  The 
mind  that  is  not  awake  and  alive  will  find  a 
library  a  barren  wilderness.  Now,  gather  up 
the  scraps  and  fragments  of  thought  on  what- 
ever subject  you  may  be  studying, — for  of  course 
by  a  note-book  I  do  not  mean  a  mere  receptacle 
for  odds  and  ends,  a  literary  dust-bin, — but 
acquire  the  habit  of  gathering  everything  when- 
ever and  w^herever  you  find  it,  that  belongs  in 
your  line  or  lines  or  study,  and  you  will  be  sur- 
prised to  see  how  such  fragments  will  arrange 
themselves  into  an  orderly  whole  by  the  very 
organizing  power  of  your  own  thinking,  acting 
in  a  definite  direction.  This  is  a  true  process  of 
self-education ;  but  you  see  it  is  no  mechanical 
process  of  mere  aggregation.  It  requires  activ- 
ity of  thought, — but  without  that,  what  is  any 
reading  but  mere  passive  amusement  ?     And  it 


9^  The  Choice  of  Books, 

requires  method.  I  have  myself  a  sort  of  hter- 
ary  book-keeping.  I  keep  a  day-book,  and  at  my 
leisure  I  post  my  literary  accounts,  bringing 
together  in  proper  groups  the  fruits  of  much 
casual  reading." 

I  may.  appropriately  close  this  chapter  with 
some  words  of  advice  on  the  use  of  note-books, 
which  Mr.  Charles  A.  Durfee,  a  competent 
authority  on  the  subject,  has  written  for  the 
benefit  of  my  readers.  "  Note-books,"  says  Mr. 
Durfee,  "  are  to  literary  men  what  books  of  ac- 
count are  to  business  men,  and  are  practically 
useful  only  as  they  are  kept  systematically  and 
with  unity  of  purpose.  But  where  a  balance- 
sheet  tells  the  whole  story  in  business,  some 
methodical  plan  must  be  substituted  to  render 
the  contents  of  note-books  available  at  all  times. 
The  natural  desire  on  the  part  of  energetic 
literary  men  to  economize  time  and  labor  in  the 
taking  and  keeping  of  notes  leads  to  confusion, 
and  in  time  they  find  themselves  surrounded  by 
a  mass  of  material  disheartening  to  think  of,  and 
impossible  to  consult  with  readiness. 

"  A  few  suggestions  resulting  from  long  ex- 
perience may  be  of  value.  Note-books  should 
not  be  so  small  as  to  become  too  numerous,  or 


The   Use  of  Note- Books,  93 

so  large  as  to  be  cumbersome.  Each  book  should 
be  paged  and  have  a  volume  number.  An  under- 
scored heading  should  precede  each  note  with 
dividing  lines  between  entries.  By  observing 
these  precautions  the  books  can  be  indexed  in  an 
alphabeted  blank-book,  and  consulted  as  if  they 
were  the  successive  volumes  of  any  indexed 
work.  For  ordinary  purposes  such  a  plan  would 
be  sufficient,  but  those  whose  lives  are  devoted 
to  general  literature  or  special  branches  require 
to  give  more  attention  to  details.  No  blank- 
book  index  can  long  remain  convenient,  as  the 
entries  lose  their  alphabetical  place. 

"  To  obviate  this,  for  permanent  use,  a  card- 
index  is  indispensable,  being  always  perfect  in 
arrangement,  inasmuch  as  the  newly  made  cards 
are  inserted  in  their  precise  positions.  In  the 
case  of  blank-book  indexes  this  is  impossible  as 
soon  as  a  few  titles  have  been  interhned,  which 
defaces  and  obscures  the  page.  Cards  cut  from 
heavy  manilla  paper  arranged  in  boxes  or  trays, 
separated  by  lettered  divisions  of  card-board 
projecting  above  the  rest,  form  an  index,  which, 
from  its  expansiveness,  cheapness,  and  portabil- 
ity, meets  every  requirement. 

"  A  card  measuring  two  inches  by  five  inches 


94  The   Choice  of  Books, 

has  been  generally  adopted  in  our  leading  libra- 
ries for  such  purposes.  Such  a  system  renders 
unnecessary  the  keeping  of  separate  note-books 
for  different  subjects,  as  a  properly  prepared 
index  will  be  classified  under  adequate  headings, 
and  serve  as  a  guide  and  summary  to  the  entire 
literary  matter,  however  extensive,  of  the  most 
industrious  workers." 


The  Cultivation  of  Taste,  95 


THE  CULTIVATION  OF  TASTE. 

Taste  can  be  cultivated.  This  remark,  one 
would  say,  is  of  obvious  truth,  and  needs  no  dis- 
cussion whatever ;  but,  in  point  of  fact,  scarcely 
anything  related  to  the  reading  habit  is  more 
frequently  ignored  or  practically  denied.  "  I 
have  no  taste  for  poetry  ;"  "  I  never  could  enjoy 
history  ;"  "Biography  may  be  very  well,' but  I 
never  could  read  it ;"  "  I  suppose  Walter  Scott 
and  George  Eliot  are  more  profitable  reading 
than  G.  P.  R.  James  or  Miss  Braddon,  but  my 
taste  prefers  the  latter ;" — such  remarks  as  these 
are  sure  to  encounter  one  who  is  seeking  to  raise 
the  standard  of  reading.  Forgetting  that  growth 
and  development  are  the  almost  unvarying 
method  of  nature  in  every  line,  too  many  people 
profess  to  believe,  and  certainly  act  as  though 
they  believe,  that  a  present  literary  taste  is  an 
inflexible  and  unalterable  thing,  to  be  accepted 
without  question,  and  no  more  to  be  changed  by 
us  than  Our  residence  upon  the  earth  instead  of 
upon  the  moon. 

Lord  Lytton  is  not  an  author  to  whom  I  am 


9^  The  Choice  of  Books, 

accustomed  to  look  for  the  highest  conceptions 
of  life  or  the  wisest  rules  for  its  conduct ;  but  on 
this  subject  of  the  cultivation  of  taste  he  puts 
some  excellent  words  into  the  mouth  of  one  of 
the  characters  of  his  novels,  who  explains  that 
good  sense  and  good  taste  are  the  result  of  a 
constant  habit  of  right  thinking  and  acting ;  of 
self-denial ;  and  of  regulation,  rather  than  acci- 
dent or  natural  temperament.  ''  Good  sense," 
says  he,  "is  not  a  merely  intellectual  attribute. 
It  is  rather  the  result  of  a  just  equilibrium  of  all 
our  faculties,  spiritual  and  moral.  The  dis- 
honest, or  the  toys  of  their  own  passions,  may 
have  genius ;  but  they  rarely,  if  ever,  have  good 
sense  in  the  conduct  of  hfe.  They  may  often 
win  large  prizes,  but  it  is  by  a  game  of  chance, 
not  skill.  But  the  man  whom  I  perceive  walk- 
ing an  honorable  and  upright  career,  just  to 
others  and  also  to  himself,  ....  is  a  more  dig- 
nified representative  of  his  Maker  than  the  mere 
child  of  genius.  Of  such  a  man,  we  say,  he  has 
good  sense  ;  yes,  but  he  has  also  integrity,  se^f- 
respect  and  self-denial.  A  thousand  trials  which 
his  sense  braves  and  conquers,  are  temptations 
also  to  his  probity,  his  temper ;  in  a  word,  to  all 
the  many  sides  of  his  complicated  nature.    Now, 


The  Cultivation  of  Taste.  97 

I  do  not  think  he  will  have  this  good  sense  any 
more  than  a  drunkard  will  have  strong  nerves, 
unless  he  be  in  the  constant  habit  of  keeping  his 
mind  clear  from  the  intoxication  of  envy,  vanity, 
and  the  various  emotions  that  dupe  and  mislead 
us.  Good  sense  is  not,  therefore,  an  abstract 
quality,  or  a  solitary  talent ;  it  is  the  natural  re- 
sult of  the  habit  of  thinking  justly,  and,  therefore, 
seeing  clearly,  and  is  as  different  from  the  sagac- 
ity that  belongs  to  a  diplomatist  or  ah  attorney, 
as  the  philosophy  of  Socrates  differed  from  the 
rhetoric  of  Gorgias.  As  a  mass  of  individual 
excellences  make  up  this  attribute  in  a  man,  so 
a  mass  of  such  men  thus  characterized  give 
character  to  a  nation.  Your  England  is,  there- 
fore, renowned  for  its  good  sense,  but  it  is 
renowned  also  for  the  excellences  which  accom- 
pany strong  sense  in  an  individual :  high  honesty 
and  faith  in  its  dealings,  a  warm  love  of  justice 
and  fair  play,  a  general  freedom  from  the  vio- 
lent crimes  common  on  the  Continent,  and  the 
energetic  perseverance  in  enterprise  once  com- 
menced, which  results  from  a  bold  and  healthful 
disposition." 

A  bold  and  healthful  disposition,  such  as  Lord 

Lytton  thus  ascribes  to  his  typical  Englishman, 
4 


98  The  Choice  of  Books, 

is  ever  on  the  watch  for  something  better  rather 
than  something  worse ;  for  something  that  will 
develop  and  strengthen,  rather  than  something 
that  will  merely  pass  muster.  So  it  is  in  the 
choice  of  books.  "  It  is  nearly  an  axiom,  that 
people  will  not  be  better  than  the  books  they 
read,"  says  Bishop  Potter.  If  a  person  never 
strives  "  to  look  up  and  not  down,"  in  his  selec- 
tion of  books,  he  need  not  expect  to  see  any  im- 
provement in  his  intellectual  faculties,  or  in  his 
personal  character  so  far  as  influenced  by  those 
faculties.  President  Porter  well  says  :  "  Inspira- 
tion, genius,  individual  tastes,  elective  affinities, 
do  not  necessarily  include  self-knowledge,  self- 
criticism  or  self-control.  If  the  genius  of  a  man 
lies  in  the  development  of  the  individual  person 
that  he  is,  his  manhood  hes  in  finding  out  by 
self-study  what  he  is  and  what  he  may  become, 
and  in  wisely  using  the  means  that  are  fitted  to 
form  and  perfect  his  individuality."  The  person 
who  reads  as  he  ought  to  read,  therefore,  will 
try  to  discover  what  his  best  intellectual  nature 
is  now,  and  what  it  may  grow  to  be  in  time  to 
come.  He  will  seek  to  add  strength  and  facility 
to  his  mind,  and  he  will  constantly  strive  to  cor- 
rect such  tendencies  as  he  finds  to  be  injurious 


The  Cultivation  of  Taste,  99 

or  not  positively  beneficial,  substituting  therefor, 
as  soon  as  may  be,  a  higher  purpose  and  a  more 
creditable  achievement. 

We  must  learn  to  know  books,  as  we  learn  to 
know  other  good  things.  "  Who  can  overesti-. 
mate  the  value  of  good  books?" — asks  W.  P. 
Atkinson, — "  those  ships  of  thought,  as  Bacon  so 
finely  calls  them,  voyaging  through  the  sea  of 
time,  and  carrying  their  precious  freight  so 
safely  from  generation  to  generation  !  Here  are 
the  finest  minds  giving  us  the  best  wisdom  r^ 
present  and  all  past  ages  ;  here  are  intellects 
gifted  far  beyond  ours,  ready  to  give  us  the 
results  of  lifetimes  of  patient  thought ;  imaginav 
tions  open  to  the  beauty  of  the  universe,  far 
beyond  what  it  is  given  us  to  behold  :  characters 
whom  we  can  only  vainly  hope  to  imitate,  but 
whom  it  is  one  of  the  highest  privileges  of  life 
to  know.  Here  they  all  are  ;  and  to  learn  to 
know  them  is  the  privilege  of  the  educated 
man. 

We  cannot  come  to  know  them  by  accident,  or 
by  relying  on  past  habitudes.  "  When  I  became 
a  man,"  said  Saint  Paul,  "  I  put  away  childish 
things ;"  and  so  must  the  manly  reader  put  away 
the  childish  habit  of  reading  story-books  alone, 


100  The  Choice  of  Books, 

or  looking  at  pictures,  or  preferring  amusement 
to  instruction  and  mental  development.  Too 
many  readers — one  is  tempted  to  say  the  ma- 
jority of  readers — never  get  beyond  the  picture- 
book  stage ;  and,  indeed,  there  are  men  and 
women  in  the  world  who  read  fewer  books  and 
poorer  books  than  when  they  were  little  chil- 
dren. 

Not  only  in  the  selection  of  books,  but  in  the 
reading  of  them,  must  one's  choice  be  guided, 
and,  so  far  as  may  be,  elevated.  I  will  quote 
here  some  sound  advice  offered  by  The  Literary 
World,  of  Boston :  "  Almost  every  article  of  food 
has  its  poison ;  and  a  most  important  function  of 
our  internal  economy  consists  in  its  intelligent 
discrimination  between  the  good  and  the  evil; 
its  careful  assimilation  of  the  good,  and  its  rigor- 
ous rejection  of  the  evil.  The  good  it  gathers 
into  the  vessels  which  are  the  storehouse  of  life, 
but  the  bad  it  casts  away.  The  peach  with  its 
prussic  acid,  the  pie-plant  with  its  oxalic  acid, 
tea  with  its  tannic  acid,  the  tomato,  and  even  the 
potato,  each  with  its  own  deleterious  ingredient, 
are  all  illustrations  of  substances  which  contain 
what,  in  sufficient  quantities,  might  be  the  death 
of  man,  were  he  not  provided  with  the  power  of 


The  Cultivation '.of  ^ .  T^sh)  \  •/  i  '\\  \^^ 

separating  between  the  forces  of  death  and  Hfe. 
Were  if  not  for  the  safeguards  which  we  invol- 
untarily practice  we  could  not  eat  with  safety 
half  the  things  which  now  not  only  feed  the  body 
but  gratify  the  taste.  Something  very  like  this 
power  is  needed  with  respect  to  the  books  we 
read.  Our  minds  should  cultivate  the  gift,  in 
keeping  with  that  of  our  physical  organs  within, 
whereby,  feasting  upon  the  rich  and  varied  diet 
with  which  they  are  supplied,  they  may  reserve 
only  what  is  nutritious,  or  palatable,  without 
being  harmful,  and  at  the  same  time  throw  ofiE 
what  is  calculated  to  offend  and  injure.  Few 
books  can  be  mentioned  in  the  general  depart- 
ments of  literature  which  do  not,  like  the  foods 
we  have  mentioned  above,  contain  the  good  and 
the  bad  combined.  History  is  full  of  dangerous 
episodes,  biography  of  specious  examples,  poetry 
of  inflaming  imagings,  and  fiction  of  demoraliz- 
ing license.  And  yet  the  worst  of  the  books  that 
are  notoriously  bad  probably  have  some  good  in 
them  ;  pictures  which  may  be  looked  upon  with- 
out harm,  and  lessons  which  it  would  be  profit- 
able to  learn.  A  great  art  in  reading,  then,  one 
which  should  be  inculcated  in  theory,  and  in  the 
practice  of •  which  the  oldest  and  wisest  of  us 


tea'  The  Choice  of  Books. 

should  constantly  be  drilling  ourselves,  is  this 
art  of  so  carrying  the  mind  along  the  paths  of 
another's  thought  that  it  shall  retain  only  the 
good  and  the  true  and  the  beautiful,  while  the 
bad  and  the  false  and  the  repulsive  shall  instantly 
pass  out  of  sight  and  recollection.  Only  as 
vire  are  masters  of  this  art  are  we  safe  in  the 
midst  of  the  perils  to  which  reading  exposes  us ; 
and  in  this  art,  which  may  be  settled  by  practice 
into  a  habit,  our  youth  particularly  should  be 
zealously  educated." 

The  great  authors  are  the  good  authors,  in 
whom  feebleness,  or  coarseness,  or  whimsicahty, 
or  meanness  and  malice,  are  accidental  rather  than 
essential.  When  we  are  reading  the  master- 
books  we  need  reject  little  ;  we  can  absorb  much. 
And  in  our  highest  and  truest  moments  we  may 
share  their  greatness,  and  stand,  so  to  speak,  on 
their  level ;  for  it  is  the  apprehension  of  great- 
ness that  makes  it  great  for  us ;  and  this  very 
apprehension  is  an  honor  to  us,  and  the  measure 
of  our  own  powers  and  attainments.  Emerson 
does  not  make  an  overstatement  when  he  says : 
"  There  is  something  of  poverty  in  our  criticism. 
We  assume  that  there  are  few  great  men,  all  the 
rest  are  little  ;  that  there  is  but  one  Homer,  but 


The  Cultivation  of  Taste,  103 

one  Shakespeare,  one  Newton,  one  Socrates. 
But  the  soul  in  her  beaming  hour  does  not  ac- 
knowledge these  usurpations.  We  should  know 
how  to  praise  Socrates,  or  Plato,  or  Saint  John, 
without  impoverishing  us.  In  good  hours  we 
do  not  find  Shakespeare  or  Homer  over  great — 
only  to  have  been  translators  of  the  happy  pres- 
ent— and  every  man  and  woman  divine  possibil- 
ities. 'Tis  the  good  reader  that  makes  the  good 
book  ;  a  good  head  cannot  read  amiss  ;  in  every 
book  he  finds  passages  which  seem  confidences 
or  asides  hidden  from  all  else  and  unmistakably 
meant  for  his  ear." 

And  behind  the  book  stands  the  author  ;  if  the 
reader  chooses  the  book  or  the  chapter  as  he 
ought,  he  shares  the  author's  best  self  and  best 
hours ;  he  associates  with  a  hero  rather  than  a 
dandy,  with  an  intellectual  giant,  not  a  dwarf ; 
and  thereby  he  shows  to  what  his  own  tastes 
have  grown.  There  is  truth  and  wisdom  in  the 
aged  Victor  Hugo's  curious  and  Frenchy,  but 
grave  and  deep-felt,  preface  to  the  recently  made 
edition  of  his  complete  works  :  "  Every  man  who 
writes  a  book ;  that  book  is  himself.  Whether 
he  knows  it  or  not,  whether  he  wishes  it  or  not, 
it  is  so.     From  every  work,  whatever  it  may  be, 


104  The  Choice  of  Books, 

mean  or  illustrious,  there  is  shaped  a  figure,  that 
of  the  writer.  It  is  his  punishment  if  he  be 
small ;  it  is  his  recompense  if  he  be  great.  If  we 
read  of  the  siege  of  Troy,  we  see  Achilles, 
Hector,  Ulysses,  Ajax,  Agamemnon  ;  we  feel 
throughout  the  entire  work  a  majesty  which  is 
that  of  the  writer.  Has  Zoilus  written?  Let  us 
examine  what  he  has  left.  He  was  a  gramma- 
rian, a  commentator,  a  glossarist :  in  every  line 
we  read  :  Zoilus.  .  But  when  the  *  Iliad  '  is  open 
before  you,  you  hear  the  voice  of  the  centuries 
say  :  Homer.  In  the  same  manner  appear  to 
us  ^schylus,  Aristophanes,  Herodotus,  Pindar, 
Theocritus,  Plautus,  Virgil,  Horace,  Juvenal, 
Tacitus,  Dante.  It  is  the  same  with  the  little  ; 
but .  why  name  them  ?  The  book  exists ;  it  is 
what  the  author  has  made  it ;  it  is  history,  philos- 
ophy, an  epic ;  it  belongs  to  the  loftiest  regions 
of  art ;  it  dwells  in  the  lower  regions  ;  it  is  what 
he  is  ;  uncombined,  insulated,  arising  for  ever  by 
his  side,  is  this  shadow  of  himself,  the  figure  of 
the  author.  Only  at  the  close  of  a  long  life, 
laborious  and  stormy,  given  wholly  to  thought 
and  to  action,  do  these  truths  reveal  themselves. 
Responsibility,  the  inseparable  companion  of 
liberty,  shows  itself.     The  man  who  traces  these 


The  Cultivation  of  Taste,  105 

lines  comprehends  them.  He  is  calm.  As  im- 
movable as  if  before  the  Infinite,  he  is  not 
troubled.  To  all  the  questions  which  ignorance 
may  propound  he  has  but  one  reply :  I  am  a 
conscience.  This  reply  every  man  can  make  or 
has  made.  If  he  has  made  it  with  all  the  candor 
of  a  sincere  soul,  that  suffices.  As  to  him,  feeble, 
ignorant,  confined,  but  having  endeavored  to 
seek  the  good,  he  will  say  without  fear  to  the 
great  darkness,  he  will  say  to  the  unknown,  he 
will  say  to  the  mystery :  I  am  a  conscience. 
And  he  will  seem  to  feel  the  unity  of  the  life  uni- 
versal in  the  complete  tranquillity  of  that  which 
is  most  simple  before  that  which  is  most  pro- 
found. There  is  a  supreme  talent  which  is  often 
given  alone,  which  requires  none  other,  which  is 
often  concealed,  and  which  has  often  more  power 
the  more  it  is  hidden  ;  this  talent  is  esteem.  Of 
the  value  of  the  work  here  given  in  its  entirety 
to  the  public,  the  future  must  decide.  But  that 
which  is  certain,  that  which  at  present  contents 
the  author,  is  that  in  these  times  where  we  are, 
in  this  tumult  of  opinions,  in  the  violence  of  pre- 
judice, whatever  may  be  the  passions,  the  anger, 
the  hate,  no  reader,  whoever  he  may  be,  if  he  be 
himself  worthy  of  esteem,  can  consider  the  book 
without  an  estimate  of  the  author." 


io6  The  Choice  of  Books, 

As  I  have  said  in  a  preceding  chapter,  the  cul- 
tivation of  taste  is  not  hastened,  but  is  seriously 
retarded,  by  pretending  that  one  likes  what  he 
does  not  like.  Sincerity  and  honesty  are  essen- 
tial, no  matter  how  low  may  be  the  present  taste, 
or  how  serious  the  problem  of  elevating  it. 
Nothing  is  gained  by  attempting  to  deceive 
others,  or  one's  self,  in  the  matter.  The  very 
expression  of  a  low  or  degraded  taste  stimulates 
one  to  endeavor  to  raise  it ;  whereas  deceit  or 
pretense  are  pretty  sure  to  be  transparent,  and 
are  even  more  injurious  when  successful  than 
when  they  fail  to  deceive.  A  wholesome  igno- 
rance can  easily  be  lifted  above  its  former  level ; 
but  of  silly  falsehood  there  is  much  less  hope. 
A  recent  writer  on  "  Sham  Admiration  in  Litera- 
ture "  has  said  that  there  is  a  "  well-nigh  univer- 
sal habit  of  literary  lying — of  a  pretense  of  ad- 
miration for  certain  works  of  which  in  reality 
we  know  very  little,  and  for  which,  if  we  knew 
more,  we  should  perhaps  care  less.  There  are 
certain  books  which  are  standard,  and  as  it  were 
planted  in  the  British  soil,  before  which  the 
majority  of  us  bow  the  knee  and  doff  the  cap 
with  a  reverence  that,  in  its  ignorance,  reminds 
one  of  fetish  worship,  and,  in  its  affectation,  of 


The  Cultivation  of  Taste,  107 

the  passion  for  high  art.  The  works  without 
which,  we  are  told  at  book  auctions,  *  no  gentle- 
man's Hbrary  can  be  considered  complete,*  are 

especially  the  objects  of  this  adoration A 

good  deal  of  this  mock  worship  is  of  course  due 
to  abject  cowardice.  A  man  who  says  he 
doesn't  like  the  '  Rambler,'  runs,  with  some 
folks,  the  risk  of  being  thought  a  fool ;  but  he  is 
sure  to  be  thought  that,  for  something  or  an- 
other, under  any  circumstances ;  and,  at  all  events, 
why  should  he  not  content  himself,  when  the 
*  Rambler '  is  belauded,  with  holding  his  tongue, 
and  smiling  acquiescence  ?  It  must  be  conceded 
that  there  are  a  few  persons  who  really  have 
read  the  '  Rambler,'  a  work,  of  course,  I  am 
merely  using  as  a  type  of  its  class.  In  their 
young  days  it  was  used  as  a  school-book,  and 
thought  necessary  as  a  part  of  polite  education ; 
and  as  they  have  read  little  or  nothing  since,  it  is 
only  reasonable  that  they  should  stick  to  their 
colors.  Indeed,  the  French  satirist's  boast  that 
he  could  predicate  the  views  of  any  man  with 
regard  to  both  worlds,  if  he  were  only  supplied 
with  the  simple  data  of  his  age  and  his  income, 
is  quite  true,  in  general,  with  regard  to  literary 
taste.     Given  the  age  ©f  the  ordinary  individual 


io8  The  Choice  of  Books. 

— that  is  to  say  of  the  gentleman  *  fond  of  books, 
but  who  has  really  no  time  for  reading ' — and  it 
is  easy  enough  to  guess  his  literary  idols.  They 
are  the  gods  of  his  youth,  and,  whether  he  has 
been  *  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn '  or  not,  he 
knows  no  other.  These  persons,  however,  rare- 
ly give  their  opinion  about  literary  matters, 
except  on  compulsion ;  they  are  harmless  and 
truthful.  The  tendency  of  society  in  general,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  not  only  to  praise  the  *  Ram- 
bler,' which  they  have  not  read,  but  to  express  a 
noble  scorn  for  those  who  have  read  it  and  don't 
like  it."  This  writer  goes  on  to  discuss  "  hypoc- 
risy in  literature "  at  length,  and  shows  how 
many  are  ignorant  of,  or  do  not  really  like  the 
authors  of  whom  everybody  talks ;  and  how 
their  social  career  is  marked  by  all  sorts  of 
equivocations  and  falsehoods  with  reference  to 
those  authors.  ''  It  is  partly  in  consequence  of 
this,"  he  says, ''  that  works,  not  only  of  acknowl- 
edged but  genuine  excellence,  such  as  those  I 
have  been  careful  to  select,  are,  though  so  uni- 
versally praised,  so  little  read.  The  poor  student 
attempts  them,  but  failing — from  many  causes  no 
doubt,  but  also  sometimes  from  the  fact  of  their 
not  being  there — to  find  those  unrivaled  beau- 


The  CultiiHition  of  Taste.  109 

ties  which  he  has  been  led  to  expect  in  every 
sentence,  he  stops  short,  where  he  would  other- 
wise have  gone  on.  He  says  to  himself,  '  I  have 
been    deceived,'   or   '  I   must   be  a   born   fool ;' 

whereas  he  is  wrong  in  both  suppositions 

The  habit  of  mere  adhesion  to  received  opinion 
in  any  matter  is  most  mischievous,  for  it  strikes 
at  the  root  of  independence  of  thought ;  and  in 
literature  it  tends  to  make  the  public  taste 
mechanical."  And  a  taste  that  is  both  mechan- 
ical and  false  is  surely  not  likely  to  be  beneficial 
to  society  at  large  or  to  the  individual  reader. 
The  remedy  proposed  by  the  writer  from  whom 
I  have  quoted  is  this :  "  It  is  not  every  one,  of 
course,  who  has  an  opinion  of  his  own  upon 
every  subject,  far  less  on  that  of  literature  ;  but 
every  one  can  abstain  from  expressing  an  opinion 
that  is  not  his  own." 

And  certainly  I  do  not  know  a  better  starting- 
point  than  this,  if  one  is  really  desirous  of  culti 
vating  his  taste.  Do  not  pretend  to  like  what 
you  do  not  like.  Do  not  pretend  to  know  what 
you  do  not  know.  Do  not  be  content  with  your 
taste  as  it  is,  but  try  to  improve  it ;  not  expect- 
ing that  you  will  ever  like  all  that  great  men 
have  written. 


no  The  Choice  of  Books. 


POETRY. 

Some  people  read  a  great  deal  of  poetry,  with 
constant  zest  and  unfailing  advantage ;  others, 
though  they  may  be  "  great  readers  "  of  other 
classes  of  hterature,  find  httle  pleasure  or  profit 
in  poetry.  Is  it  a  duty  to  read  poetry  ?  Should 
those  who  seem  to  have  no  natural  taste  for  it, 
endeavor  to  cultivate  a  taste  ;  or  should  they 
rest  content  with  the  conclusion  that  some  minds 
appreciate,  and  profit  by,  poetical  compositions, 
while  other  minds  have  no  capacity  for  their 
enjoyment  ? 

It  may  not  be  a  downright  duty  to  like  poetry, 
or  to  try  to  like  it ;  but  certainly  it  is  a  misfor- 
tune that  so  large  and  lovely  a  division  of  the 
world's  literature  should  be  lost  to  any  reader. 
The  absence  of  a  poetic  taste  is  a  sad  indication 
of  a  lack  of  the  imaginative  faculty  ;  and  with- 
out imagination  what  is  Hfe  ?  "  The  study  and 
reading  of  poetry,"  sa3^s  President  Porter,  "  ex- 
ercises and  cultivates  the  imagination,  and  in 
this  way  imparts  intellectual  power.  It  is  im- 
possible   to    read   the    products  of    any  poet's 


Poetry,  1 1 1 

imagination  without  using  our  own.  To  read 
what  he  creates  is  to  recreate  in  our  own  minds 
the  images  and  pictures  which  he  first  conceived 
and  then  expressed  in  language." 

If  a  reader  finds  that  the  ideal  has  little  or  no 
place  in  his  intellectual  life  or  in  his  daily  pro- 
cesses of  thought  and  feeling,  then  he  should 
consider,  with  all  soberness,  the  fact  that  a  God- 
given  power  is  slipping  away  from  him — a  power 
without  which  his  best  faculties  must  become 
atrophied  ;  without  which  he  loses  the  greater 
half  of  the  enjoyment  of  life,  day  by  day  ;  with- 
out which,  in  very  truth,  he  cannot  see  all  the 
glory  of  the  open  door  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven.  Children  are  poets ;  they  see  fairy- 
land in  a  poor  broken  set  of  toy  crockery  or  in  a 
ragged  company  of  broken-nosed  dolls.  Their 
powers  of  imagination  ought  never  to  be  lost  in 
the  humdrum  affairs  of  a  work-a-day  world ; 
their  habit  of  finding  the  real  in  the  ideal  is  one 
which  cannot  be  laid  aside  without  great  detri- 
ment to  the  individual  life  and  character.  There 
may,  then,  be  persons  who  "  have  no  capacity  for 
poetry,"  and  who  cannot  cultivate  a  taste  for  it ; 
but  this  inability,  if  real,  is  to  be  mourned  as  a 
mental  blindness  and  deafness,  shutting  out 
whole  worlds  from  sight  and  hearing. 


112  The  Choice  of  Books, 

There  is,  of  course,  a  great  deal  of  imaginative 
literature  which  is  not  poetry,  in  the  technical 
sense  ;  but  if  one  can  read  Hawthorne  or  Rich- 
ter  with  pleasure,  he  is  quite  sure  to  find  no 
stumbhng-block  in  Schiller's  "  Lay  of  the  Bell," 
or  Drake's  "  Culprit  Fay."  It  is  the  poetic  spirit 
that  we  should  recognize  and  take  to  our  hearts, 
whatever  be  the  outward  form  in  which  it  may 
be  enshrined. 

What  is  the  poetic  spirit  ?  Many  have  been 
the  attempts  to  define  it ;  but,  after  all,  we  can 
only  say,  in  the  words  Shelley  wrote  in  his 
''  Hymn  to  the  Spirit  of  Nature  :"  "  All  feel,  yet 
see  thee  never."  Or  again,  is  not  poetry  to  be 
described,  as  nearly  as  we  may  describe  it,  in 
two  more  lines  from  the  same  fine  poem  ? — 

Lamp  of  Earth,  where'er  thou  movest 
Its  dim  shapes  are  clad  with  brightness. 

In  W.  P.  Atkinson's  excellent  lecture  on  read- 
ing is  a  passage  concerning  poetry,  which  is  both 
imaginative  and  practical.  "  I  have  no  thought," 
says  he,  "of  attempting  here  a  definition  of 
poetry,  though  I  should  like  to  come  and  give 
you  a  lecture  on  the  art  of  reading  it.  Whether 
we  call  it,  with  Aristotle,  imitation  ;  whether  we 
say  more  worthily,  with  Bacon,  '  that  it  was  ever 


Poetry.  113 

thought  to  have  some  participation  of  divineness 
because  it  doth  raise  and  erect  the  mind  by  sub- 
mitting the  shows  of  things  to  the  desires  of  the 
mind,  whereas  reason  doth  buckle  and  bow  the 
mind  unto  the  nature  of  things ;'  whether,  in 
more  modern  times,  we  define  it,  with  Shelley, 
as  *  the  best  and  happiest  thoughts  of  the  best 
and  happiest  minds  ;'  or  say,  with  Matthew  Ar- 
nold, that  '  poetry  is  simply  the  most  beautiful, 
impressive  and  widely  effective  mode  of  saying 
things  ;'  and,  again,  that  '  it  is  to  the  poetical 
literature  of  an  age  that  we  must  in  general  look 
for  the  most  perfect  and  the  most  adequate 
interpretation  of  that  age  ;'  or  whether  we  say 
with  the  greatest  poet  of  the  last  generation,  that 
*  poetry  is  the  breath  and  finer  spirit  of  all  knowl- 
edge, the  impassioned  expression  which  is  in  the 
countenance  of  all  science  ' — all  I  am  concerned 
to  say  here  is,  that  poetry  is  that  branch  of  the 
literature  of  power  pre-eminently  worthy  of 
study,  and  that  without  study  we  shall  know  but 
little  about  it." 

We  need  not  think  then,  that  the  reading  of 
poetry  is  a  matter  of  whim  or  accident,  to  be 
undertaken  without  thought  or  study.  Presi- 
dent Porter  says  that  "  a  taste  for  poetry,  espe- 


114  The  Choice  of  Books, 

daily  that  of  the  highest  order,  is  to  a  great 
extent  the  product  of  special  culture."  The 
foundation  for  this  culture  lies  in  the  individual 
mind  ;  for  its  development  he  must  seek  his  ma- 
terial from  the  treasures  around  him,  and  must 
work  out  his  methods  of  utilizing  that  material 
w^ith  the  same  care — or  even  greater — which  he 
applies  to  other  departments  of  intellectual  exer- 
cise. Let  him,  if  he  finds  his  taste  in  need  of 
cultivation,  begin  with  such  poems  as  he  likes ; 
read  them  more  than  once  ;  learn  their  teachings  ; 
apprehend  their  inner  spirit  and  purpose.  What- 
ever the  beginning,  it  is  sure  to  lead  to  some- 
thing better,  if  the  reader  will  but  resolutely 
determine  to  know  what  the  writer  meant  to 
say  ;  to  see  the  picture  that  he  portrayed  ;  and 
to  share  his  enthusiasm  and  warmth  of  feeling. 

Mr.  G.  J.  Goschen,  an  English  banker  and 
political  economist,  declares  that  the  cultivation 
of  the  imagination  is  essential  to  the  highest  suc- 
cess in  politics,  in  learning,  and  in  the  commer- 
cial business  of  life.  No  one  is  too  dull,  or  too 
prosaic,  or  too  much  absorbed  in  the  routine  of 
"  practical  life  "  to  be  absolved  from  the  care  of 
his  imaginative  powers ;  and  no  one  is  likely  to 
find  that  this  care  will  not  repay  him  even  in  a 


Poetry.  115 

practical  sense.  He  who  thinks  wisely,  he  who 
perceives  quickly  that  which  others  do  not  see 
at  all,  is  better  equipped  for  any  work  than  one 
whose  mind  works  slowly  and  feebly,  and  whose 
apprehensions  have  grown  rusty  from  disuse. 

Poetry  is  not  for  the  few,  but  for  the  many,  for 
all.  The  world's  great  poems,  absolutely  with- 
out exception,  have  been  poems  whose  meaning 
has  been  perfectly  clear  and  whose  language  has 
been  simple, — poems  which  have  addressed 
themselves  to  the  plain  and  common  sense  of 
the  ages.  Obscurity  and  whimsicality  may  be- 
long to  the  Brownings  of  literature — to  the  star- 
gazing Transcendentalists  of  1840,  or  to  the 
posturing  "  impressionists "  of  to-day.  But 
Homer,  and  Virgil,  and  Dante,  and  Chaucer, 
and  Shakespeare  need  no  mystical  commentary 
to  explain  their  meaning ;  like  Mark  Antony, 
they  "  only  speak  right  on."  If  a  poem  is  ob- 
scure, you  may  know  by  that  mark  alone  that  it 
is  a  second-rate — or  tenth-rate — affair,  and  that 
it  is  not  worth  your  while  to  vex  your  brain 
over  it  at  all.  If  a  poet  has  not  made  himself 
clear,  it  is  his  fault  and  not  yours,  if  you  are  a 
person  of  average  intellectual  capacity.  Feel 
not    abashed   if  you   do  not    comprehend  the 


ii6  The  Choice  of  Books, 

*'  Orphic  "  or  the  "  intense  ;"  most  hkely  the  author 
did  not  comprehend  it  himself.  Sunlight,  air, 
water — these  are  not  for  the  few ;  nor  is  poetry 
•to  be  cooped  and  confined  any  more  than  these. 
Principal  Shairp  thus  speaks  of  this  inherent 
quality  of  the  best  poetry — a  quality  which  all 
men  may  apprehend  if  they  will :  "  The  pure 
style  is  that  which,  whether  it  describes  a  scene, 
a  character,  or  a  sentiment,  lays  hold  of  its  inner 
meaning,  not  its  surface ;  the  type  which  the 
thing  embodies,  not  the  accidents  ;  the  core  or 
heart  of  it,  not  the  accessories.  .  .  .  Descriptions 
of  this  kind,  while  they  convey  typical  concep- 
tions, yet  retain  perfect  individuality.  They  are 
done  by  a  few  strokes,  in  the  fewest  possible 
words ;  but  each  stroke  tells,  each  word  goes 
home.  Of  this  kind  is  the  poetry  of  the  Psalms 
and  of  the  Hebrew  prophets.  It  is  seen  in  the 
brief,  impressive  way  in  which  Dante  presents 
the  heroes  or  heroines  of  his  nether  world,  as 
compared  with  Virgil's  more  elaborate  pictures. 
In  all  of  Wordsworth  that  has  really  impressed 
the  world,  this  will  be  found  to  be  the  chief 
characteristic.  It  is  seen  especially  in  his  finest 
lyrics  and  his  most  impressive  sonnets.  Take 
only  three  poems  that  stand   together  in   his 


Poetry,  117 

works,  '  Glen  Almain,'  '  Stepping  Westward,* 
'  The  Solitary  Reaper.'  In  each  you  have  a 
scene  and  its  sentiment  brought  home  with  the 
minimum  of  words,  the  maximum  of  power.  It 
is  distinctive  of  the  pure  style  that  it  relies  not 
on  side  effects,  but  on  the  total  impression — that 
it  produces  a  unity  in  which  all  the  parts  are 
subordinated  to  one  paramount  aim.  The 
imagery  is  appropriate,  never  excessive.  You 
are  not  distracted  by  glaring  single  lines  or  too 
splendid  images.  There  is  one  tone,  and  that 
all-pervading — reducing  all  the  materials,  how- 
ever diverse,  into  harmony  with  the  one  total 
result  designed.  This  style  in  its  perfection  is 
not  to  be  attained  by  any  rules  of  art.  The 
secret  of  it  lies  further  in  than  rules  of  art  can 
reach,  even  in  this  :  that  the  writer  sees  his 
object,  and  this  only ;  feels  the  sentiment  of  it, 
and  this  only  ;  is  so  absorbed  in  it,  lost  in  it,  that 
he  altogether  forgets  himself  and  his  style,  and 
cares  only  in  fewest,  most  vital  words  to  convey 
to  others  the  vision  his  own  soul  sees.  ...  The 
ornate  style  in  poetry  is  altogether  different  from 
this.  No  doubt  the  multitude  of  uneducated 
and  half-educated  readers,  which  every  day 
increases,  loves  a  highly  ornamented,  not  to  say 


ii8  The  Choice  of  Books, 

a  meretricious,  style  both  in  literature  and  in  the 
arts ;  and  if  these  demand  it,  writers  and  artists 
will  be  found  to  furnish  it.  There  remains, 
therefore,  to  the  most  educated  the  task  of 
counterworking  this  evil.  '  With  them  it  lies  to 
elevate  the  thought  and  to  purify  the  taste  of 
less  cultivated  readers,  and  so  to  remedy  one  of 
the  evils  incident  to  democracy.  To  high  think- 
ing and  noble  living  the  pure  style  is  natural. 
But  these  things  are  severe,  require  moral 
bracing,  minds  not  luxurious  but  which  can 
endure  hardness.  Softness,  self-pleasing,  and 
moral  limpness  find  their  congenial  element  in 
excess  of  highly-colored  ornamentation.  On  the 
whole,  when  once  a  man  is  master  of  himself  and 
of  his  materials,  the  best  rule  that  can  be  given 
him  is  to  forget  style  altogether,  and  to  think 
only  of  the  reality  to  be  expressed.  The  more 
the  mind  is  intent  on  the  reality,  the  simpler, 
truer,  more  telling  the  style  will  be.  The  advice 
which  the  great  preacher  gives  for  conduct 
holds  not  less  for  all  kinds  of  writing :  '  Aim  at 
things,  and  your  words  will  be  right  without 
aiming.  Guard  against  love  of  display,  love  of 
singularity,  love  of  seeming  original.  Aim  at 
meaning  what  you  say,  and  saying  what  you 


Poetry.  119 

mean.'  When  a  man  who  is  full  of  his  subject 
and  has  matured  his  powers  of  expression  sets 
himself  to  speak  thus  simply  and  sincerely,  what- 
ever there  is  in  him  of  strength  or  sweetness,  of 
dignity  or  grace,  of  humor  or  pathos,  will  find 
its  way  out  naturally  into  his  language.  That 
language  will  be  true  to  his  thought,  true  to  the 
man  himself." 

How  different  is  such  poetical  language  from 
the  poetry  of  the  obscure,  or  the  mock- 
sentimental,  or  the  positively  base !  What  The 
Saturday  Review  has  said  of  Byron  is  true  of 
many  another  poet :  "  Even  Byron's  best  passages 
will  not  stand  critical  examination.  They  excite 
rather  than  transport,  and  when  the  reader  ex- 
amines seriously  what  he  has  felt,  the  impression 
of  a  vague  contagious  excitement  is  all  that  he 
retains.  In  reading  Byron,  the  reader  dimly 
feels  that  he  is  in  the  presence  of  a  very  eloquent 
person  who  is,  or  would  like  to  be  thought,  in  a 
state  of  great  excitement  about  something,  and 
that  it  is  his  duty  to  become  excited  too." 

True  poetry  has  a  far  nobler  mission  than  to 
puzzle,  of  to  amuse,  or  to  excite ;  it  is  the  voice 
of  all  that  is  best  in  humanity,  speaking  from 
man  to  man.     Not  all  of  us  can  thus  speak,  but 


I20  The  Choice  of  Books, 

we  can  all  hear,  and  incorporate  what  we  hear 
in  our  best  and  truest  life,  day  by  day. 


The  Art  of  Skipping.  121 


THE  ART  OF  SKIPPING. 

It  is  a  fortunate  thing  that  one  of  the  most 
hackneyed  quotations  concerning  books  and 
reading  should  also  be  one  of  the  most  sensible 
ones :  Lord  Bacon's  saying  that  "  Some  Books 
are  to  be  tasted,  others  to  be  swallowed,  and 
some  few  to  be  chewed  and  digested ;  that  is, 
some  books  are  to  be  read  only  in  parts ;  others 
to  be  read,  but  not  curiously ;  and  some  few  to 
be  read  wholly,  and  with  diligence  and  atten- 
tion." 

The  following  of  this  piece  of  advice  has  done 
a  great  deal  of  good ;  and  no  harm  is  likely  to 
come  from  its  wise  observance.  Some  people 
profess  to  believe  that  a  book  that  is  worth  read- 
ing at  all  is  Avorth  reading  straight  through, — a 
piece  of  foolishness  that  would  be  paralleled  by 
an  insistance  upon  eating  a  table-full  every  time 
one  sits  down  to  a  meal.  A  person  who  makes 
up  his  mind  to  read  all  of  a  book  or  none,  must 
be  fully  convinced  of  the  solemn  truth  of  the 
saying  that  "  a  book's  a  book,  although  there's 
nothing  in't."     Against  such  lack  of  wisdom  the 


122  The  Choice  of  Books, 

sturdy  common  sense  of  Lord  Bacon's  remark 
may  be  put.  The  reader  need  but  rest  assured 
of  its  unquestionable  truth,  and  spend  his  time 
in  trying  to  discover  what  books  are  to  be  tasted, 
what  swallowed,  and  what  digested  ;  rather  than 
vex  his  soul  in  questioning  whether  the  general 
advice  is  sound  or  not. 

A. book  that  is  worth  reading  all  through,  is 
pretty  sure  to  make  its  worth  known.  There  is 
something  in  the  literary  conscience  which  tells 
a  reader  whether  he  is  wasting  his  time  or  not. 
An  hour  or  a  minute  may  be  sufficient  oppor- 
tunity for  forming  a  decision  concerning  the 
worth  or  worthlessness  of  the  book.  If  it  is  utter- 
ly bad  and  valueless,  then  skip  the  whole  of  it,  as 
soon  as  you  have  made  the  discovery.  If  a  part 
is  good  and  a  part  bad,  accept  the  one  and  reject 
the  other.  If  you  are  in  doubt,  take  warning  at 
the  first  intimation  that  you  are  misspending 
your  opportunity  and  frittering  away  your  time 
over  an  unprofitable  book.  Reading  that  is  of 
questionable  value  is  not  hard  to  find  out ;  it 
bears  its  notes  and  marks  in  unmistakable  plain- 
ness, and  it  puts  forth,  all  unwittingly,  danger 
signals  of  which  the  reader  should  take  heed. 

The  art  of  skipping  is,  in  a  word,  the  art  of 


The  Art  of  Skipping,  123 

noting  and  shunning  that  which  is  bad,  or  frivol- 
ous, or  misleading,  or  unsuitable  for  one's  indi- 
vidual needs.  If  you  are  convinced  that  the 
book  or  chapter  is  bad,  you  cannot  drop  it  too 
quickly.  If  it  is  simply  idle  and  foolish,  put  it 
away  on  that  account,^unless  you  are  properly 
seeking  amusement  from  idleness  and  frivolity.  If 
it  is  deceitful  and  disingenuous,  your  task  is  not 
so  easy,  but  your  conscience  will  give  you  warn- 
ing, and  the  sharp  examination  which  should 
follow,  will  tell  you  that  you  are  in  poor  literary 
company. 

But  there  are  a  great  many  books  which  are 
good  in  themselves,  and  yet  are  not  good  at  all 
times  or  for  all  readers.  No  book,  indeed,  is 
of  universal  value  and  appropriateness.  As  has 
been  said  in  previous  chapters  of  this  series,  the 
individual  must  always  dare  to  remember  that  he 
has  his  own  legitimate  tastes  and  wants,  and  that 
it  is  not  only  proper  to  follow  them,  but  highly 
improper  to  permit  them  to  be  overruled  by  the 
tastes  and  wants  of  others.  It  is  right  for  one  to 
neglect  entirely,  or  to  skip  through,  pages  which 
another  should  study  again  and  again.  Let  each 
reader  ask  himself:  Why  am  I  reading  this.'^ 
What  service  will  it  be  to  me  ?    Am  I  neglect- 


124  The  Choice  of  Books. 

ing  something  else  that  would  be  more  bene- 
ficial ?  Here,  as  in  every  other  question  in- 
volved in  the  choice  of  books,  the  golden  key  to 
knowledge,  a  key  that  will  only  fit  its  own 
proper  doors,  is  purpose. 

Thus  the  reader  is  the  pupil  and  the  compan- 
ion and  the  fellow- worker  of  the  author,  not  his 
slave.  *'  It  is  a  wise  book  that  is  good  from  title- 
page  to  the  end,"  says  A.  Bronson  Alcott.  Such 
a  book  should  be  read  through  ;  but  the  books 
that  are  wise  in  spots  should  be  read  in  spots. 
Again,  Mr.  Alcott  says :  "  I  value  books  for 
their  suggestiveness  even  more  than  for  the 
information  they  may  contain ; — volumes  that 
may  be  taken  in  hand  and  laid  aside,  read  at  odd 
moments,  containing  sentences  that  take  posses- 
sion of  my  thought  and  prompt  to  the  following 
them  into  their  wider  relations  with  life  and 
things."  This  suggestiveness  of  books  read  at 
odd  moments  is  one  of  the  great  advantages  of 
judicious  skipping.  From  this  habit  comes,  often, 
a  riper  and  wholesomer  harvest  than  would 
spring  from  the  most  painstaking  devotion  to 
regulated  and  routine  reading  and  study.  One 
page,  one  sentence,  thus  planted  in  the  fertile 
soil  of  a  receptive  mind,  is  better  than  a  whole 


The  Art  of  Skipping.  125 

library  read  from  a  mere  sense  of  duty,  and 
without  reference  to  one's  own  true  welfare,  as 
indicated  by  his  nature  and  his  needs. 

No  one  thus  wisely  choosing  what  he  may  best 
read  need  be  in  any  fear  that  he  is  a  superficial 
reader.  "  Did  you  ever  happen  to  see/'  asks  a 
writer  whose  name  I  Tiave  unfortunately  lost, — 
"did  you  ever  happen  to  see,  in  shrewd,  old, 
hard-headed  Bishop  Whately's  annotations  on 
Lord  Bacon's  essays,  a  good  passage  about  what 
is  and  what  is  not  superficiality  ?  It  is  in  the 
sentence  in  Bacon's  Essay  on  Studies,  '  Crafty 
men  contemn  studies.'  *  This  contempt,'  says 
the  bishop,  *  whether  of  crafty  men  or  narrow- 
minded  men,  finds  its  expression  in  the  word 
*  smattering,'  and  the  couplet  is  become  almost  a 
proverb  : 

A  little  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing  : 
Drink  deep,  or  taste  not  the  Pierian  spring. 

But  the  poet's  remedies  for  the  dangers  of  a 
little  learning  are  both  of  them  impossible.  No 
one  can  drink  deep  enough  to  be  in  truth  any- 
thing more  than  superficial;  and  every  human 
being  that  is  not  a  downright  idiot  must  taste. 
And  the  bishop,  in  his  downright  way,  goes  on 
to  give  practical  illustrations  of  the  usefulness  of 


126  The  Choice  of  Books, 

a  little  knowledge,  and  proceeds  :  '  What,  then, 
is  the  smattering,  the  imperfect  and  superficial 
knowledge  that  does  deserve  contempt?  A 
slight  and  superficial  knowledge  is  justly  con- 
demned when  it  is  put  in  the  place  of  more  full 
and  exact  knowledge.  Such  an  acquaintance 
with  chemistry  and  anatomy,  for  instance,  as 
would  be  creditable  and  not  useless  to  a  lawyer, 
would  be  contemptible  for  a  physician  ;  and  such 
an  acquaintance  with  law  as  would  be  desirable 
for  him,  would  be  a  most  discreditable  smatter- 
ing for  a  lawyer." 

Hamerton  has  some  wise  words  on  this  sub- 
ject :  "  It  becomes  a  necessary  part,"  says  he, 
*'  of  the  art  of  intellectual  living,  so  to  order  our 
work  as  to  shield  ourselves  if  possible,  at  least 
during  a  certain  portion  of  our  time,  from  the 
evil  consequences  of  hurry.     The  whole  secret 

lies  in  a  single  word — selection The  art 

is  to  select  the  reading  which  will  be  most  use- 
ful to  our  purpose,  and,  in  writing,  to  select  the 
words  which  will  express  our  meaning  with  the 
greatest  clearness  in  a  little  space.  The  art  of 
reading  is  to  skip  judiciously.  Whole  libraries 
may  be  skipped  in  these  days,  when  we  have  the 
results  of  them  in  our  modern  culture  without 


The  Art  of  Skipping,  127 

going  over  the  ground  again.  And  even  of  the 
books  we  decide  to  read,  there  are  almost  always 
large  portions  which  do  not  concern  us,  and 
which  we  are  sure  to  forget  the  day  after  we 
have  read  them.  The  art  is  to  skip  all  that  does 
not  concern  us,  whilst  missing  nothing  that  we 
really  need.  No  external  guidance  can  teach  us 
this ;  for  nobody  but  ourselves  can  guess  what 
the  needs  of  our  intellect  may  be.  But  let  us 
select  with  decisive  firmness,  independently  of 
other  people's  advice,  independently  of  the 
authority  of  custom." 

Of  course  it  follows  that,  to  some  extent,  we 
can  let  others  do  the  work  of  selection  for  us, 
subject  to  correction  whenever  necessary.  "  In 
comparing  the  number  of  good  books  with  the 
shortness  of  life,  many  might  well  be  read  by 
proxy,  if  we  had  good  proxies,"  says  Emerson. 
Sensible  literary  guides  must  be  followed  to  a 
large  extent,  whether  in  their  recommendation  of 
one  book  as  against  another,  or  of  certain  poems 
or  prose  extracts  in  comparison  with  others. 
Books  of  selection  it  is  true,  sometimes  omit 
things  we  would  have  greatly  liked ;  but  who 
will  pretend  to  say  that  he  always  finds  every- 
thing that  would  have  pleased  or  profited  him, 


128  .  The  Choice  of  Books, 

even  when  he  makes  his  own  choice  ?  As  no 
worker  in  any  field  of  labor  can,  in  this  social 
world,  dispense  with  the  help  of  others,  so  it  is 
especially  necessary  for  readers  to  follow  the 
guidance  of  pioneers  and  wise  critics;  and  to 
make  use  of  the  selections  these  critics  have 
made,  as  well  as  their  indication  of  whole  books. 
And  sometimes,  as  Emerson's  remark  shows  us, 
we  may  not  only  delegate  to  others  the  work  of 
choice  and  selection,  but  also  that  of  reading 
itself. 


Tlu  Use  of  Translations,  129 


THE  USE  OF  TRANSLATIONS. 

A  FEW  words  concerning  the  use  of  translations 
of  the  masterpieces  of  other  languages  may  be 
properly  given  here,  because  it  is  a  subject  con- 
cerning which  most  guides  to  reading  have 
nothing  whatever  to  say  and  to  which  the  ma- 
jority of  intelligent  readers,  even,  have  given 
very  little  thought.  Great  as  is  the  neglect  of 
good  reading  in  one's  own  language,  still  greater 
is  the  lack  ot  attention  to  English  translations  of 
the  noble  books  of  other  literatures  than  our 
own. 

An  intelligent  comprehension  of  one's  needs  in 
the  choice  of  books  should  certainly  include  due 
attention  to  the  literature  of  France,  or  Germany, 
or  Italy,  or  Greece,  or  Spain ; — or,  in  other 
words,  such  a  comprehension  should  never  for- 
get that  good  literature  is  not  an  insular  affair, 
bounded  by  the  limits  of  one  country,  or  by  the 
letters  of  one  language.  Of  course  it  is  both 
natural  and  proper  that  the  greater  part  of  our 
reading  should  be  of  books  of  American  or  Eng- 
lish authorship  ;    but  our  culture   and  training 


130  The  Choice  of  Books, 

will  be  greatly  impoverished  if,  because  of  a  par- 
tial or  complete  unfamiliarity  with  the  languages 
in  which  they  wrote,  we  take  no  account  of 
Homer,  or  Virgil,  or  Dante,  or  Goethe. 

Speaking  in  general  terms,  the  entire  body  of 
the  best  literature  of  other  lands  is  accessible  in 
adequate  English  translations.  And  of  the  use 
which  may  be  made  of  them,  let  Emerson  speak, 
in  one  of  the  most  familiar  passages  of  his  essay 
on  books :  "  The  respectable  and  sometimes 
excellent  translations  of  Bohn's  Library  have 
done  for  literature  what  railroads  have  done  for 
internal  intercourse.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  read 
all  the  books  I  have  named,  and  all  good  books, 
in  translations.  What  is  really  best  in  any  book 
is  translatable — any  real  insight  or  broad  human 
sentiment.  Nay,  I  observe  that,  in  our  Bible, 
and  other  books  of  lofty  moral  tone,  it  seems 
easy  and  inevitable  to  render  the  rhythm  and 
music  of  the  original  into  phrases  of  equal 
melody.  The  Italians  have  a  fling  at  translators 
— i  traditori  traduttori  ;  but  I  thank  them.  I 
rarely  read  any  Greek,  Latin,  German,  Italian, 
sometimes  not  a  French  book,  in  the  original, 
which  I  can  procure  in  a  good  version.  I  like  to 
be  beholden  to  the  great  metropolitan  English 


The   Use  of  Tra7islattons,  131 

speech,  the  sea  which  receives  tributaries  from 
every  region  under  heaven.  I  should  as  soon 
think  of  swimming  across  Charles  river  "when  I 
wish  to  go  to  Boston,  as  of  reading  all  my  books 
in  originals,  when  I  have  them  rendered  for  me 
in  my  mother-tongue."  If  such  a  man  as  Emer- 
son thus  recognizes  the  utility  of  translations, 
surely  the  average  reader  cannot  afford  to  ignore 
them ;  whether  from  his  feeling  that  he  must 
read  books  in  the  original  or  not  at  all,  or  because 
he  carelessly  permits  himself  to  forget  that  vast 
land  which  lies  beyond  the  bounds  of  his  imme- 
diate literary  horizon. 

Mr.  Emerson  is  one  of  the  scholarly  men  of  his 
age ;  an  author  who  has,  in  an  especial  degree, 
made  the  wisdom  of  all  times  pay  tribute  to 
him.  If  any  contemporary  writer  could  properly 
be  "  above  "  reading  translations,  he  might  be 
supposed  to  be  that  one ;  and  yet  he  takes 
advanced  ground  in  the  matter,  and  speaks  ten 
times  as  boldly  as  a  mere  village  pedant  would 
dare  to  speak.  Let  us  also  hear  what  Hamerton 
has  to  say  on  the  same  subject — bearing  in  mind 
that  his  testimony  is  of  special  value,  because  he 
might  well  be  thought  likely  to  take  exactly  the 
contrary   view,   inasmuch   as   he   has   lived    in 


132  The  Choice  of  Books, 

France  and  England,  married  a  French  wife,  and 
uses  the  French  and  Enghsh  languages  with 
absolute  indifference.  He  says :  ''  Mature  life 
brings  so  many  professional  or  social  duties  that 
it  leaves  scant  time  for  culture,  and  those  who 
care  for  culture  most  earnestly  and  sincerely,  are 
the  very  persons  who  will  economize  tim.e  to  the 
utmost.  Now,  to  read  a  language  that  has  been 
very  imperfectly  mastered  is  felt  to  be  a  bad 
economy  of  time.  Suppose  the  case  of  a  man 
occupied  in  business  who  has  studied  Greek 
rather  assiduously  in  youth  and  yet  not  enough 
to  read  Plato  with  facility.  He  can  read  the 
original,  but  he  reads  it  so  slowly  that  it  would 
cost  him  more  hours  than  he  can  spare,  and  this 
is  why  he  has  recourse  to  a  translation.  In  this 
case  there  is  no  indifference  to  Greek  culture ; 
on  the  contrary,  the  reader  desires  to  assimilate 
what  he  can  of  it,  but  the  very  earnestness  of 
his  wish  to  have  free  access  to  ancient  thought 
makes  him  prefer  it  in  modern  language." 

Hamerton  also  points  out  effectively  that  even 
an  intelligent  and  apparently  deep  study  of 
another  language  may  not  bring  with  it  an 
insight  into  its  spirit,  or  a  true  knowledge  of  its 
richest  treasures :  "  Suppose  a  society  of  French- 


The   Use  of  Translations,  133 

men,  in  some  secluded  little  French  village, 
where  no  Englishman  ever  penetrates,  and  that 
these  Frenchmen  learn  English  from  diction- 
aries, and  set  themselves  to  speak  English 
with  each  other,  without  anybody  to  teach  them 
the  colloquial  language  or  its  pronunciation, 
without  ever  once  hearing  the  sound  of  it  from 
English  lips,  what  sort  of  English  would  they 
create  among  themselves  ?  This  is  a  question 
that  I  happen  to  be  able  to  answer  very  accu- 
rately, because  I  have  known  two  Frenchmen 
who  studied  English  literature  just  as  the  French- 
men of  the  sixteenth  century  studied  the  litera- 
ture of  ancient  Rome.  One  of  them,  especially, 
had  attained  what  would  certainly  in  the  case  of 
a  dead  language  be  considered  a  very  high 
degree  of  scholarship  indeed.  Most  of  our 
great  authors  were  known  to  him,  even  down  to 
the  close  critical  comparison  of  different  read- 
ings. Aided  by  the  most  powerful  memory  I 
ever  knew,  he  had  amassed  such  stores  that  the 
acquisitions,  even  of  cultivated  Englishmen, 
would  in  many  cases  have  appeared  inconsider- 
able beside  them.  But  he  could  not  write  or 
speak  English  in  a  manner  tolerable  to  an  Eng- 
lishman; and  although  he  knew  nearly  all  the 


134  The  Choice  of  Books, 

words  in  the  language,  it  was  dictionary  knowl- 
edge, and  so  different  from  an  Englishman's 
apprehension  of  the  same  words  that  it  was  only 
a  sort  of  pseudo-English  that  he  knew,  and  not 
our  living  tongue.  His  appreciation  of  our 
authors,  especially  our  poets,  differed  so  widely 
from  English  criticism  and  feeling  that  it  was 
evident  that  he  did  not  understand  them  as  we 
understand  them.  Two  things  especially  proved 
this  :  he  frequently  mistook  declamatory  versifi- 
cation for  poetry  of  an  elevated  order ;  whilst, 
on  the  other  hand,  his  ear  failed  to  perceive  the 
music  of  the  musical  poets,  as  Byron  and  Tenny- 
son. How  could  he  hear  their  music,  he  to 
whom  our  English  sounds  were  all  unknown? 
Here,  for  example,  is  the  way  he  read 
»Clariber:— 


At  ev  ze  bittle  bommess 

Azvart  ze  zeeket  Ion 
At  none  ze  veeld  be  ommess 

Aboot  ze  most  edston 
At  meedneeg  ze  mon  commess 

An  lokez  dovn  alon 
Ere  songg  ze  lintveet  svelless 
Ze  clirvoiced  mavi  dvelle^^s 

Ze  fledgling  srost  lispess 
Ze  slombroos  vav  ootvelless 

Ze  babblang  ronnel  creespess 
Ze  ollov  grot  replee-ess 
Vere  Claribel  lovlee-ess." 


The   Use  of  Translations,  i35 

Plainly,  then,  "  liberally  educated  "  people,  as 
such,  have  no  right  to  affect  superiority  over 
such  persons  as  venture  to  assert  that  English 
translations  of  foreign  works  are  not  only  per- 
missible reading,  but  that  they  sometimes  convey 
a  far  better  idea  of  foreign  literature  than  may 
be  obtained  from  any  save  the  most  complete 
and  successful  study  of  other  tongues.  The 
average  college  graduate  is  almost  certain  to  be 
a  mere  baby  in  his  knowledge  of  the  ancient  and 
modem  literature  of  Europe,  though  he  has  pro- 
fessed to  study  Latin  six  or  seven  years,  and 
Greek  f qur  or  five  years,  and  French  and  German 
two  or  three  terms.  Of  this  study,  fully  nine- 
tenths  has  been  of  grammatical  forms,  and  ety- 
mological niceties,  and  syntactical  constructions ; 
and  his  translating  has  been  done  by  piecemeal, 
in  such  a  way  as  to  destroy  pretty  effectually  all 
idea  of  the  largeness  and  noble  quality  of  the 
text  in  hand — and  still  more  of  the  literature  of 
which  that  text  is  a  part.  Etymology  is  not 
literature  ;  syntax  is  not  literature ;  the  conjuga- 
tion of  a  verb  is  not  literature.  They  may  or 
may  not  be  the  gateways  of  an  adequate  knowl- 
edge of  literature ; — more  often  they  are  not,  in 
our  usual  scheme  of  college  education.     What- 


13^  The  Choice  of  Books, 

ever  advantages  may  be  derived  from  the 
grammatical  study  of  a  language — and  they 
are  great,  perhaps  essential — the  student  should 
not  imagine  that  grammatical  study,  unsupple- 
mented  by  something  more,  is  literary  study. 
I  am  not  decrying  grammar.  I  am  only  say- 
ing that  philology  is  one  thing,  and  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  spirit  and  life  of  a  foreign  literature 
is  quite  another  thing.  There  are  old  and 
eminent  colleges  at  the  north  which  do  far 
less  toward  leading  their  students  toward  the 
literatures  of  their  own  and  other  languages  than 
is  done  by  more  than  one  small  and  feebip  insti- 
tution at  the  west  or  south.  So  far  as  literary 
culture  is  concerned,  then,  these  venerable  and 
illustrious  colleges  are  failures,  and  these  new 
and  feebly  equipped  "  universities "  of  newer 
communities  are  successes.  An  institution  of 
learning  which  fetters  its  classes  in  chains  whose 
links  are  mere  grammatical  niceties,  is  not  to  be 
accounted  a  literary  institution  at  all,  in  compar- 
ison with  one  which  directs  its  students  to  the 
fair  fields  of  belles-lettres,  and  strives  to  imbue 
them  with  the  idea  that  the  spirit  and  life  of 
Homer  is  something  beyond  and  above  the 
anatomy  of  the  Greek  verb.     A  college  of  the 


The  Use  of  Translations,  137 

former  kind  may,  indeed,  graduate  scholars,  but 
an  institution  of  the  latter  kind  may  send  forth 
in  a  single  day,  as  in  the  Bowdoin  class  of  1825, 
a  Longfellow  and  a  Hawthorne — the  foremost 
poet  and  the  foremost  prose  writer  of  a  country. 
Every  reader,  whether  college  bred  or  not, 
whether  he  can  read  his  Bible  in  half  a  dozen 
languages  or  in  English  alone,  should  therefore 
remember  that  it  is  his  bounden  duty  to  know 
somewhat  of  the  world's  literature.  If  he  can 
know  it  at  first  hand,  in  the  original  tongue,  so 
much  the  better ;  but  if,  as  must  usually  happen, 
he  must  look  to  English  translations,  let  him  not 
forget  that  a  Keats,  who  knew  not  a  word  of 
Greek,  got  nearer  the  heart  of  Greek  literature 
than  a  hundred  Porsons  could  ever  do.  Better 
is  a  single  book  of  Bryant's  Homer — so  far  as 
Greek  letters  are  concerned — than  five  years  of 
mere  verbal  grubbing  over  the  grammar  and 
dictionary. 


13^  The  Choice  of  Books* 


HOW  TO  READ  PERIODICALS. 

It  is  wholly  unadvisable  to  attempt  to  reg- 
ulate one's  plans  of  reading  with  the  intention 
of  leaving  out  newspapers  and  other  periodi- 
cals, as  *'  wastes  of  time."  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  average  book  is  far  more  profitable 
reading  than  the  average  copy  of  a  newspaper  ; 
but  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  best  book  is 
at  all  times  a  better  thing  to  read  than  the  best 
newspaper.  In  this  age  of  many  periodicals,  a 
very  large  share  of  the  best  literature  first 
appears  in  them ;  and,  aside  from  literature 
proper,  one's  scheme  of  reading  is  very  defective 
if  it  takes  no  account  of  the  news  of  the  day.  A 
reader  has  no  right  to  be  well  acquainted  with 
ancient  history,  or  with  the  treasures  of  poetry 
or  romance,  if  such  acquaintance  has  been  pur- 
chased at  the  price  of  entire  ignorance  of  the 
great  events  and  the  leading  principles  of  con- 
temporary life. 

In  Hamerton's"  "  Intellectual  Life  " — a  book 
from  which  I  have  already  quoted  so  many 
times  as  to  show  my  appreciation  of  it  as  a 


Haw  to  Read  Periodicals.  139 

helper  to  sound  habits  of  mental  regimen — is  a 
chapter  addressed  "  to  a  friend  (highly  cultiva- 
ted) who  congratulated  himself  on  having 
entirely  abandoned  the  habit  of  reading  news- 
papers." Mr.  Hamerton  admits  that  this  friend 
will  have  a  definite  gain  to  show  for  whatever 
may  be  his  loss  ;  and  that  some  five  hundred 
hours  a  year  will  be  saved  to  him  as  a  time- 
income  which  may  be  applied  to  whatever  pur- 
pose he  may  select.  "  In  those  five  hundred 
hours,"  says  he  to  his  friend,  "  which  are  now 
your  own,  you  may  acquire  a  science,  or  obtain  a 
more  perfect  command  over  one  of  the  languages 
which  you  have  studied.  Some  department 
of  your  intellectual  labors  which  has  hitherto 
been  unsatisfactory  to  you,  because  it  was  too 
imperfectly  cultivated,  may  henceforth  be  as 
orderly  and  as  fruitful  as  a  well-kept  garden. 
You  may  become  thoroughly  conversant  with 
the  works  of  more  than  one  great  author  whom 
you  have  neglected,  not  from  lack  of  interest, 
but  for  want  of  time."  But  against  these  gains 
must  be  set  the  loss  of  political  and  social  intelli- 
gence ;  of  the  ability  to  deal  with  the  practical 
questions  of  the  hfe  in  which  one  lives ;  and  of 
a  large  part  of  that  community  of  knowledge 


HO  The  Choice  of  Books, 

which  is  so  essential  to  the  right  development  of 
a  mind  and  of  a  character.  In  a  word,  total 
abstinence  from  the  reading  of  periodicals  must 
make  a  person  to  some  extent  both  ignorant  and 
selfish.  "  He  who  has  not  learned  to  read  his 
daily  newspaper,"  says  W.  P.  Atkinson,  "  will 
hardly  read  Gibbon  and  Grote  to  any  purpose : 
he  who  cannot  see  history  in  the  streets  of 
Boston  will  trouble  himself  to  no  purpose  with 
books  about  Rome  or  Pompeii."  President 
Porter  avers  that ''  it  must  be  acknowledged  that 
periodicals  are  in  many  respects  a  great  intellect- 
ual convenience.  They  abbreviate  labor  and 
place  the  results  of  the  research  of  a  few  at  the 
service  and  disposal  of  the  many.  .  .  .  Often- 
times an  article  is  better  than  a  book."  The 
same  thought  is  thus  worded  by  F.  B.  Perkins  : 
"  Read  periodicals  ;  not  idly  and  wastefully,  but 
so  as  to  keep  up  with  the  truth  of  the  present  as 
well  as  to  learn  the  truth  of  the  past.  More  and 
more,  wise  and  good  thoughts  are  pubHshed  in 
these  temporary  forms.  .  .  .  The  important 
thing  is  to  avoid  being  limited  to  one  journal ;  to 
see  as  many  as  possible,  and  to  learn  to  choose 
what  is  valuable  and  to  skip  the  rest." 

Admitting  thus  the  utility  of  the  reading  of 


How  to  Read  Periodicals.  i4'i 

periodicals,  and  even  insisting  upon  the  necessity 
and  duty  of  reading  them,  it  must  nevertheless 
be  said  in  the  plainest  manner  that  an  alarming 
amount  of  time  is  wasted  over  them,  or  worse 
than  wasted.     When  we  have  determined  that 
newspapers  and  magazines  ought  to  be  read,  let  us 
by  no  means  flatter  ourselves  that  all  our  read- 
ing of  them  is  commendable  or  justifiable.     I  am 
quite  safe  in  saying  that  the  individual  who  hap- 
pens to  be  reading  these  lines  wastes  more  than 
half  the  time  that  he  devotes  to  periodicals  ;  and 
that  he  wastes  it  because  he  does  not  regulate 
that  time  as  he  ought.     "  To  learn  to  choose 
what  is  valuable  and  to  skip  the  rest  "  is  a  good 
rule  for  reading  periodicals  ;    and  it  is  a   rule 
whose  observance  will  reduce,  by  fully  one  half, 
the  time  devoted  to  them,  and  will  save  time  and 
strength  for  better  intellectual  employments, — 
to  say  nothing  of  the  very  important  fact  that 
disciphne  in  this  line  will  prevent  the  reader 
from  falling  into  that  demoralizing  and  altogether 
disgraceful  inabiHty  to  hold  the  mind  upon  any 
continuous  subject  of  thought  or  study,  which  is 
pretty  sure  to  follow  in  the  train  of  undue  or 
thoughtless  reading  of  periodicals.     And  when, 
as  too  often  happens,  a  man  comes  to  read  noth- 


142  The  Choice  of  Books, 

ing  save  his  morning  paper  at  breakfast  or  on  the 
train,  and  his  evening  paper  after  his  day's  work 
is  over,  that  man's  brain,  so  far  as  reading  is 
concerned,  is  only  half  alive.  It  cannot  carry  on 
a  long  train  of  thought  or  study  ;  it  notes  super- 
ficial things  rather  than  inner  principles  ;  it  seeks 
to  be  amused  or  stimulated,  rather  than  to  be 
instructed. 

How,  then,  shall  we  set  to  work  to  put  in 
practice  that  important  truth  which  President 
Porter  states  thus :  "  One  should  use  the  news- 
paper as  a  servant  and  not  as  a  master  "  ? 

In  the  first  place,  there  are  very  many  period- 
icals that  are  not  worth  reading  at  all — "  story 
papers  "  in  particular,  that  neither  instruct  nor 
profitably  amuse.  Then,  there  are  among  the 
newspapers  of  the  day  a  large  number  which 
look  at  men  and  things  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  superficial  cynic  or  the  "  man  of  the  world." 
When  a  paper  lacks  sincerity  and  purpose  in 
what  it  says,  and  habitually  sneers  and  jests,  that 
paper  is  a  good  one  to  let  alone.  To  this  class 
belong  too  many  of  our  daily  newspapers,  in 
which  a  real  apprehension  of  the  seriousness  of 
life,  and  of  its  nobiHty  and  beauty,  seems  utterly 
lacking.     The  habitual  reading  of  such  papers  is 


How  to  Read  Periodicals,  143 

enough  to  make  one  a  joker  without  wit,  a  critic 
without  knowledge,  a  loafer  rather  than  a  work- 
er, a  grimacing,  monjcey-like  looker-on  rather 
than  a  soldier  in  the  battle  of  life.  These  are 
strong  words ;  but  if  the  reading  of  certain 
papers  I  could  name,  and  which  my  readers 
could  name,  does  not  have  this  effect,  it  is  due  to 
the  reader  rather  than  to  the  newspaper. 

In  the  reading  of  papers  which  are  worthy  of 
being  read,  we  should  bring  every  article  or 
item,  so  far  as  may  be,  before  the  tribunal  of  our 
intellectual  conscience,  and  demand  of  it  what 
is  its  purpose,  and  what  its  utility  to  ourselves. 
If  a  thing  is  useless  to  us,  then  we  may  advan- 
tageously let  it  alone.  A  paper  or  a  magazine  is 
not  all  for  everybody  ;  some  things  in  it  are  for 
you,  some  for  me,  some  for  others.  We  can 
readily  tell  what  belongs  to  us  and  what  to 
somebody  else.  Again,  in  the  things  which  we 
may  properl}^  read,  we  should  bear  it  in  mind 
not  to  exceed  the  proper  proportion  of  time  to 
be  devoted  to  a  particular  subject.  It  is  often 
enough  to  know  that  an  event  has  taken  place, 
without  reading  all  the  particulars.  News- 
papers are  pretty  sure  to  violate  the  true 
perspective  of   events ;     and   their  violation  of 


144  The  Choice  of  Books. 

perspective  we  must  correct  for  ourselves.  One 
very  valuable  help  toward  reducing  the  time  we 
spend  over  newspapers  .is  to  keep  in  check  the 
attention  we  are  all  too  ready  to  give  to  specula- 
tions as  to  what  may  happen  if  certain  contin- 
gencies arise  in  the  future.  "  A  large  proportion 
of  newspaper  writing,"  says  Hamerton, ''  is  occu- 
pied with  speculations  on  what  is  likely  to  hap- 
pen in  the  course  of  a  few  months ;  therefore,  by 
waiting  until  the  time  is  past,  we  know  the  event 
without  having  wasted  time  in  speculations 
which  could  not  affect  it."  We  should  put  our- 
selves in  the  position  of  one  who  bears  in  mind 
the  *'  long  result  of  time,"  as  well  as  the  particu- 
lar duties  and  experiences  of  the  day.  The  cul- 
tivation of  this  principle  will  also  do  much  to 
remove  the  dangerous  influence  of  an  undue 
devotion  to  the  ephemeral  excitements  and  bit- 
terness of  partisan  politics,  in  w^hich  newspapers 
of  course  play  an .  active  part.  Hamerton  even 
goes  so  far  as  to  advise  the  avoidance  of  all 
literature  that  h^s  a  controversial  tone.  This  is 
urging  more  than  is  practicable,  or  advisable; 
but  we  can  at  least  read  newspapers  in  such  a 
manner  that  we  need  not  be  ashamed  of  our- 
selves after  election-day. 


How  to  Read  Periodicals,  i45 

Some  sound  hints  on  newspaper  reading,  with 
especial  reference  to  fixing  its  place  in  our  intel- 
lectual employment  of  time,  and  to  its  regulation 
by  intelligent  purpose,  have  lately  been  offered 
by  Horace  E.  Scudder.  "  In  the  daily  life  of  a 
vast  number  of  people,"  he  says,  "  reading  the 
newspaper  is  as  regular  an  occupation  as  taking 
breakfast.  The  day  does  not  seem  begun  unless 
the  newspaper  is  read.  Ask  one  of  these  readers 
as  he  lays  the  paper  down,  *  Is  there  any  news?  * 
and  ten  to  one  he  will  be  unable  to  recall  what 
he  has  just  read.  He  has  not  necessarily  read 
inattentively.  He  has,  perhaps,  been  so  absorbed 
that  he  failed  to  see  the  impatience  of  some  one 
near  him  anxious  also  to  get  a  view  of  the  paper. 
But  his  mind  has  been  directed  to  a  great  variety 
of  subjects,  in  all  of  which  he  may  have  an  easy 
interest,  and  he  has  settled  off-hand  a  number  of 
cases  which  have  come  up  for  judgment.  It  is 
easy  to  look  at  the  paper  philosophically  as  con- 
taining an  epitome  of  the  life  of  the  world  during 
the  past  twenty-four  hours,  and,  no  doubt,  in  our 
modern  comprehensiveness  of  interest,  we  feel  as 
lively  an  interest  in  Afghanistan  as  our  fathers 
felt  in  Canada  ;  but  it  remains  a  fact  that  there 
i§  quite  ^§  much  dissipation  of  thought  as  con- 


146  The   Choice  of  Books, 

centration  in  reading"  the  daily  newspaper.  It 
rarely  serves  as  a  mental  stimulus,  or  leaves  one 
with  a  conscious  elevation  of  spirit.  We  do  not 
disparage  the  daily  use  of  the  newspaper,  but 
we  desire  to  fix  its  place,  and  to  remind  ourselves 
that  it  cannot  be  a  substitute  for  reading  and 
thinking.  The  very  construction  of  a  newspaper 
takes  it  out  of  the  region  of  literature.  It  has 
been  argued  that  in  process  of  time  educative 
processes  will  show  Macaulays  and  Froudes 
holding  the  reporters'  pencils.  It  seems  to  be 
intended  by  such  phrases  to  denote  the  elevation 
of  reporting  to  a  place  in  literary  art,  and  those 
writers  are  taken  for  models  who  have  held  their 
readers  chiefly  by  the  brilliancy  of  their  style. 
Well,  this  is  not  impossible,  for  the  merits  which 
such  writers  have,  lie  largely  on  the  surface,  and 
call  for  little  leisure  either  in  writer  or  reader. 
But  the  daily  newspaper  in  all  its  parts  must 
speak  quickly  and  to  the  point.  What  is  so  old 
as  yesterday's  paper  ?  When  people  go  to  sea 
they  haste  to  buy  the  very  latest  edition  of  half 
a  dozen  dailies ;  their  land  life  is  still  upon  them, 
and  they  are  driven  by  it.  But  an  hour  or  two 
of  neglect  after  the  steamer  leaves  its  port  has 
lost  them  the  opportunity  of  reading.     The  ha 


Haw  to  Read  Periodicals.  H? 

rizon  of  sea  and  sky  find  no  place  for  the  paper, 
and  it  lies  unread.  The  tendency  in  the  paper 
itself  is  to  paragraphs ;  and  if  there  is  a  long- 
report  of  an  address,  or  detailed  account  of 
something  just  now  attracting  attention,  it  is 
broken  into  bits  with  headings,  so  that  it  need 
not  look  long  and  dull.  Every  concession  is 
made  to  the  hurried,  impatient  and  listless 
reader.  It  is  plain  that  the  newspaper  serves  a 
temporary  end,  even  though  that  end  is  every 
day  renewed.  We  are  not  denying  its  useful- 
ness when  we  plead  for  as  regular  a  daily  read- 
ing which  shall  have  another  kind  of  value  and 
serve  another  end.  Let  us  suppose  half  an  hour 
in  a  hurried  day  given  to  the  newspaper.  Any 
one  who  will  make  the  experiment  will  see  that 
he  can  read  the  same  newspaper  in  one-half  the 
time  by  a  skillful  process  of  elimination.  He  can 
omit  the  accidents,  for  example — at  least  such  as 
have  not  befallen  his  friends  and  neighbors.  A 
glance  at  the  fires  will  assure  him  whether  there 
is  one  which  concerns  him.  He  is  not  bound  to 
read  the  details  of  even  an  interesting  one  which 
happens  to  be  reported  in  his  paper.  If  it  had 
been  given  in  four  lines  instead  of  forty  he 
would  Jiave  missed  nothing.     Any  one,  by  exer- 


148  The  Choice  of  Books. 

cising  a  judicious  self-restraint,  can  easily  reduce 
his  reading  of  what  he  is  immediately  going  to 
put  out  of  his  mind,  one-half." 

As  for  the  reading  of  magazines  and  reviews, 
and  of  newspapers  which  are  devoted  to  com- 
ment and  criticism  rather  than  news,  it  need 
only  be  said  that  the  time  spent  over  them  need 
be  watched  somewhat  less  strictly,  and  that  the 
following  of  the  same  principle  of  purpose,  of 
w^hich  we  have  spoken  so  often,  will  make  easy 
the  selection  of  articles. 


Reading  Aloud,  and  Reading  Clubs,    149 


READING  ALOUD,  AND  READING 
CLUBS. 

"  How  should  we  read?"  asks  Bishop  Alonzo 
Potter  in  his  still  useful  hand-book  for  readers  ■; 
and  then  the  good  bishop  proceeds  to  answer 
the  question  in  four  replies  :  "  First,  thought- 
fully and  critically  ;  secondly,  in  company  with 
a  friend,  or  your  family  ;  thirdly,  repeatedly  ; 
fourthl}^,  with  pen  in  hand." 

Reading  aloud,  in  the  company  of  others — the 
practice  commended  by  Bishop  Potter  in  the 
second  of  these  rules — is  in  every  way  advan- 
tageous. Its  least  important  advantage  is  never- 
theless highly  salutary  ;  that  it  affords  valuable 
riieans  for  elocutionary  development ;  and,  aside 
from  this,  it  promotes  thought,  it  stimulates  one 
mind  by  contact  with  another ;  and  it  almost 
inevitably  calls  forth,  by  discussion,  facts  and 
opinions  which  otherwise  would  not  have  been 
considered, 

In  one  of  his  recent  jeremiads  on  the  alleged 
decline  and  inutility  of  the  public  school  system, 
Richard  Grant  White  offers  some  suggestions 


ISO  The  Choice  of  Books. 

on  the  training  of  classes  in  the  art  of  reading 
aloud,  which  are  so  sound  and  sensible  that  they 
may  well  be  repeated  here  for  general  readers 
as  well  as  educators.  "  Of  all  knowledge  and 
mental  training,"  says  Mr.  White,  "  reading  is  in 
our  day  the  principal  means,  and  reading  aloud 
inteUigently  the  unmistakable,  if  not  the  only, 
sign.  Yet  this,  which  was  so  common  when  the 
present  generation  of  mature  men  were  boys,  is 
just  what  our  highly  and  scientifically  educa- 
tional educators  seem  either  most  incapable  or 
most  neglectful  of  teaching.  And  yet  the  means 
by  which  children  were  made  intelligent  and 
intelligible  readers,  thirty-five  or  forty  years  ago, 
were  hot  so  recondite  as  to  be  beyond  attain- 
ment and  use  by  a  teacher  of  moderate  abilities 
and  acquirement,  who  set  himself  earnestly  to 
his  work.  As  I  remember  it,  this  was  the  way 
in  which  we  were  taught  to  read  with  pleasure 
to  ourselves  and  with  at  least  satisfaction  to  our 
hearers.  Boys  of  not  more  than  seven  to  nine 
years  old  were  exercised  in  defining  words  from 
an  abridged  dictionary.  The  word  was  spelled 
and  the  definition  given  from  memory,  and  then 
the  teacher  asked  questions  which  tested  the 
pupil's  comprehension  of  the  definition  that  he 


Reading  Aloud,  and  Readmg  Clubs,    1 5 1 

had  given,  and  the  members  of  the  class,  never 
more  than  a  dozen  or  fourteen  in  number,  were 
encouraged  to  give  in  their  own  language  their 
notion  of  the  word  and  to  distinguish  it  from 
so-called  synonyms.  As  to  the  amount  of  knowl- 
edge that  was  thus  gained,  it  was  very  little — 
little,  at  least,  in  comparison  with  the  value  of 
this  exercise  as  education,  that  is,  of  mental 
training,  which  was  very  great.  The  same  class 
read  aloud  every  day,  and  the  books  that  they 
read  were  of  sufficient  interest  to  tempfoboys  to 
read  them  of  themselves.  .  .  .  When  the  reading 
began  all  the  class  were  obliged  to  follow  the 
reader,  each  in  his  own  book ;  for  any  pupil  was 
liable  to  be  called  upon  to  take  up  the  recitation, 
even  at  an  unfinished  sentence,  and  go  on  with 
it ;  and  if  he  hesitated  in  such  a  manner  as 
showed  that  his  eye  and  mind  were  not  with  the 
reader's,  the  effect  upon  his  mark  account  was 
the  same  as  if  he  himself  had  failed  in  reading. 
If  the  reading  of  any  sentence  did  not  show  a 
just  apprehension  of  its  meaning,  the  reader  was 
stopped  and  the  sentence  was  passed  through 
the  class  for  a  better  expression  of  its  sense. 
Whether  this  was  obtained  from  the  pupils  or 
not,  the  teacher  then  explained  the  sense  or  gave 


152  The  Choice  of  Books, 

some  information,  the  want  of  which  had  caused 
the  failure,  and  by  repetition  of  both  readings — 
the  bad  and  the  good — showed  by  contrast  and 
by  comment  why  the  one  was  bad  and  why  the 
other  good.  Words  were  explained ;  if  they 
were  compound  words  they  were  analyzed ;  the 
different  shades  of  meaning  which  words  have 
in  different  connections  were  remarked  upon, 
and  the  subject  of  the  essay,  the  narration,  or 
the  poem  which  formed  the  lesson  of  the  day 
was  exf)lained.  The  delivery  of  the  voice  was 
attended  to ;  not  in  any  pretentious,  artificial, 
elecutionary  way,  but  for  such  regard  for  good 
and  pleasant  speech  as  was  dictated  by  common 
sense  and  good  breeding.  The  young  readers 
were  not  allowed  to  hang  their  heads  either  over 
their  bosoms  or  over  their  shoulders,  but  were 
made  to  stand  up  straight,  throw  back  their 
shoulders,  lift  their  heads  well  up,  so  that  if  their 
eyes  were  taken  from  their  books,  they  would 
look  a  man  straight  in  the  face.  Only  in  this 
position  can  the  voice  be  well  delivered.  The 
slightest  mispronunciation  was,  of  course,  ob- 
served and  corrected,  and  not  only  so,  but  bad 
enunciation  was  checked,  and  all  slovenly  mum- 
bling was  reprehended,  and  as  far  as  possible 


Reading  Aloud,  arid  Reading  Clubs,    153 

reformed.  Yet  with  all  this  there  was  constant 
caution  against  a  prim,  pedantic  and  even  a  con- 
scious mode  of  reading.  The  end  sought  was 
an  intelligent,  natural,  and  simple  delivery  of 
every  sentence.  Of  course,  a  lesson  in  reading 
like  this  was  no  trifling'  matter.  It  was,  indeed, 
the  longest  recitation  of  the  session,  and  the  one 
at  which  the  instructive  powers  of  the  teacher 
were  most  severely  tested.  But  it  was.  the  most 
valuable,  the  most  important  lesson  of  the  day. 
By  it  the  pupil  was  taught  not  only  to  read  well 
and  speak  well,  but  to  think.  His  powers  of 
attention  and  apprehension  were  put  in  exercise, 
and  he  was  obliged  to  discriminate  shades  of 
meaning  before  he  could  express  them  by  inflec- 
tion of  voice.  Reading  aloud  well  was  then 
regarded  as  inferior  in  importance  to  no  other 
*  branch '  of  education ;  it  was  practiced  until 
pupils  were  prepared  to  enter  college,  the  later 
reading  lessons  being  taken  from  Milton  or  Pope 
or  Burke,  or  some  other  writers  of  the  highest 
class,  and  being  again  accompanied  by  explana- 
tion and  criticism.  In  the  earlier  years  of  a 
boy's  school-time  any  other  recitation  would  be 
omitted  by  the  teacher  sooner  than  that  in  read- 
ing aloud.     How  it  is,  or  why  it  is,  that  such 


154  TJu  Choice  of  Books, 

instruction  in  reading  has  fallen  into  disuse  I  do 
not  know.  Indeed,  I  know  that  it  is  disused  only 
by  the  chorus  of  complaint  that  goes  up  on  all 
sides,  both  in  England  and  in  the  United  States, 
that  children  cannot  read  aloud,  and  that  they 
cannot  write  from  dictation.  This,  of  course, 
could  not  be  if  children  were  taught  in  the  man- 
ner which  I  have  endeavored  to  describe.  A 
school-boy  of  eight  or  nine  years  old,  if  taught  in 
that  way,  would  know  how  to  read  English 
aloud  decently  well,  if  he  knew  nothing  else. 
And  it  is  really  more  important  that  he  should 
know  how  to  do  this  well,  and  that  he  should 
learn  to  do  it  in  some  such  manner  as  I  have 
described,  than  that  he  should  begin  the  study 
of  the  arts  and  sciences." 

In  this  connection  there  occurs  to  the  mind  a 
single  verse  of  the  Bible,  which  comprises,  in 
twenty-three  words,  a  whole  treatise  on  the  art 
of  reading  aloud  :  "  So  they  read  in  the  book  in 
the  law  of  God  distinctly,  and  gave  the  sense, 
and  caused  them  to  understand  the  reading." 

This  is  not  the  place  for  any  long  discussion  of 
the  externals,  so  to  speak,  of  reading  aloud.  As 
we  have  said,  reading  in  the  home  circle,  or 
literary  clubs,  binds  mere  elocutionary  practice 


Reading  Aloud,  and  Reading  Clubs,    i55 

closely  with  a  new  apprehension  of  the  sense  of 
what  is  read,  and  promotes  in  a  high  degree  the 
growth  of  the  culture  of  all  the  persons  who 
take  part  in  it.  Fortunately,  the  habit  is  being 
revived  of  late  years,  both  at  home  and  in 
associations  of  readers.  It  can  be  taken  up  at 
any  time  :  nothing  is  easier  than  to  find  listeners 
more  than  willing  to  be  "  read  to " ;  and  the 
custom  will  prove  to  repay  cultivation  to  an 
unlimited  extent.  Of  course  reading  aloud  is 
slower  work  than  reading  to  one's  self  ;  but  the 
advantages  of  deUberate  thought,  and  of  a  fellow- 
ship with  the  minds  of  others,  more  than  make 
up  this  loss. 

Some  helpful  hints  on  social  literary  work  for 
women — hints  which  apply,  for  the  most  part, 
equally  well  to  men,  or  to  the  literary  clubs 
composed  of  both  sexes — may  well  be  reprinted 
here,  from  The  Christian  Union,  in  lieu  of  further 
words  of  my  own.  "  In  ever}^  community,"  says 
the  journal,  "  there  are  intelligent  women,  with 
considerable  leisure  at  their  command,  who  have 
a  desire  to  be  helpful,  and  in  the  same  commu- 
nity there  is  a  class  of  young  women  who  need 
intellectual  stimulus  and  guidance.  How  shall 
the  two  be  brought  together,  so  that  the  supply 


15^  The  Choice  of  Books, 

shall  meet  the  demand  ?  Newspapers,  magazines, 
and  public  libraries  all  serve  an  admirable  pur- 
pose in  the  intellectual  life  of  the  community, 
but  they  are  not  sufficient.  What  is  needed  is 
personal  influence  and  power,  and  this  is  just  the 
element  which  inteUigent  women  are  able  to 
supply.  Almost  every  village,  certainly  every 
larger  town,  contains  a  number  of  recent  gradu- 
ates from  high  schools  and  seminaries,  who  are 
not  able,  for  one  reason  or  another,  to  complete 
their  school  education  by  a  full  college  course. 
Now,  to  girls  of  this  class,  a  woman  of  tact  and 
intelligence  can  render  the  greatest  possible  ser- 
vice by  helping  them  to  preserve  the  habits  of 
study  they  have  already  formed,  to  keep  alive 
the  intellectual  interest  and  curiosity  that  have 
been  awakened  in  them,  and  by  giving  them  just 
that  impulse  which  shall  keep  them  drinking 
continually  at  the  running  streams  of  knowledge. 
The  training  of  the  best  schools  fails  unless  it 
emphasizes  the  importance  of  continual  and  sys- 
tematic study  as  the  habit  of  a  hfetime,  but  it  is 
just  this  which  large  numbers  of  bright  and 
promising  graduates  from  the  higher  schools  fail 
to  carry  away  with  them.  They  go  home  from 
their   last  term  with  a  latent  desire  for  fuller 


Reading  Aloud,  and  Reading  Clubs.    i57 

knowledge,  but  that  desire  is  not  strong  enough 
to  carry  them  through  the  interruptions  home 
life  brings  to  a  regular  course  of  study,  and  what 
they  need  is  an  impulse  from  without,  and  the 
guidance  of  some  mature  and  trained  mind.  Any 
intelligent  woman  can  find  a  noble  work  for  her- 
self by  opening  her  doors  to  girls  of  this  class, 
and  providing  in  her  home  a  kind  of  post-gradu- 
ate course  for  them.  No  study  and  no  teaching 
is  so  delightful  as  that  which  is  full  of  the  ele- 
ment of  personality,  in  which  teacher  and  schol- 
ars meet  on  a  social  basis,  and  as  friends  mutually 
interested  in  the  same  work,  in  which  the 
methods  are  entirely  informal  and  conversa- 
tional, and  the  result  the  largest  and  freest  dis- 
cussion of  the  subject.  An  experiment  of  this 
kind  need  not  be  a  heavy  task  on  the  teacher 
either  in  time  or  effort.  A  class  may  be  formed 
which  shall  meet  for  an  hour  once  or  twice  a 
week,  taking  any  subject  for  study  that  has  vital 
connection  with  life.  Nothing  could  be  more 
stimulating  and  interesting,  for  instance,  than  a 
study  of  the  age  of  Pericles  in  Greek  history, 
taking  Curtius  as  a  historical  basis,  and  reading 
in  connection  an  account  of  the  Greek  poets  of 
that  period, to  which  may  be  profitably 


15^  The  Choice  of  Books. 

added  discussions  on  the  Grecian  art  of  the  day, 
and  chapters  from  such  books  as  *  Mahaffy's 
Social  Life  among  the  Greeks.'  Half  a  dozen 
other  historical  epochs  are  quite  as  interesting 
and  fruitful :  that  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth,  for 
instance,  in  French  history  ;  that  of  Elizabeth  in 
English  history,  the  richest  and  most  fascinating 
epoch  in  the  development  of  the  English  race. 
No  subject  will  be  more  entertaining  in  itself  or 
open  up  so  many  paths  of  private  reading  and 
study  as  English  literature.  An  excellent  plan 
would  be  to  take  Stopford  Brooke's  '  Primer  of 
English  Literature'  as  a  connecting  thread  of 
study,  and  with  it  as  a  guide  to  make  the  grand 
tour  of  English  literature,  taking  each  great 
author  in  his  turn  and  making  such  study  of  his 
life  and  work  as  would  be  within  the  power  of 
an  ordinarily  intelligent  person.  Different  au- 
thors may  be  assigned  to  different  members  of 
the  class,  who  shall  specially  study  up  and  give 
account  of  them,  so  that  the  principal  facts  of 
their  lives,  the  special  qualities  of  their  work  and 
the  particular  impulse  which  they  imparted  to 
their  age  may  be  made  the  possession  of  the 
whole  class.  Then  there  is  the  great  field  of  art, 
which  by  the  aid  of  the  admirable  text-books 


Reading  Aloud,  and  Readi7ig  Clubs,    1 59 

now  being  published  may  be  intelligently  and 
profitably  traversed  by  those  who  have  no  op- 
portunities for  technical  knowledge,  but  who 
desire  to  know  art  in  its  historical  aspects,  and 
to  be  able  by  knowledge  of  its  historical  develop- 
ment to  understand  the  school  of  the  present 
day.  These  hints  will  suggest  a  multiplicity  of 
topics  that  might  with  the  utmost  profit  be 
studied  in  this  way.  Every  woman  who  desires 
to  make  the  experiment  can  easily  settle  the 
question  of  what  subject  she  shall  take,  by  con- 
sulting her  own  culture,  her  own  tastes,  and  the 
needs  of  those  whom  she  wishes  to  help.  The 
special  knowledge  to  be  imparted  is  not  of  so 
much  value  as  the  habit  of  study,  which  is  to  be 
strengthened  and  made  continuous  in  the  life  of 
the  student." 

In  the  formation  of  classes  Hke  those  indicated 
above — in  which  reading  aloud  must  of  course 
play  a  large  part — or  of  Shakespeare  clubs,  or 
social  literary  organizations  in  general,  two 
things  should  never  be  forgotten  ;  that  almost 
any  kind  of  a  beginning  is  better  than  none  ;  and 
that  the  constitution  and  by-laws  of  the  society, 
if  it  is  deemed  necessary  to  have  any,  should  be 
of  the  simplest  character  possible. 


i6o  The  Choice  of  Books, 

Edward  Everett  Hale  says  that,  in  his  expe- 
rience as  a  parish  minister,  he  looks  back  on  the 
work  which  the  reading-classes  have  done  with 
him,  with  more  satisfaction  than  on  any  other, 
organized  effort  in  which  he  has  shared  for  the! 
education  of  the  young.  His  most  important 
hints  for  the  management  of  such  classes  are  as 
follows  : 

"  It  seems  desirable  that  a  class  shall  be  of 
such  a  size  that  free  conversation  may  be  easy. 
If  the  number  exceeds  thirty,  the  members 
hardly  become  intimate  with  each  other,  and 
there  is  a  certain  shyness  about  speaking  out  in 
meeting.  The  size  of  the  room  has  some  effect 
in  this  matter. 

"  I  think  that  in  the  choice  of  the  subject  the 
range  may  easily  be  too  large.  It  seems  desir- 
able that  the  members  of  the  class  shall  know  at 
the  beginning  what  their  winter's  work  is  to  be 
so  specifically  that  they  can  adjust  to  it  their 
general  readings.  Even  the  choice  of  novels  for 
relaxation,  or  the  selection  of  what  they  will 
read  and  what  they  will  not,  in  newspapers, 
magazines  and  reviews,  depends  on  this  first 
choice  of  subject.  The  leader  of  the  class  should 
give  a  good  deal  of  time  to  preparation.     The 


Reading  Alotid,  and  Reading  Chcbs.    i6i 

more  he  knows,  the  better  of  course ;  but  all  that 
is  absolutely  necessary  is  that  he  shall  keep  a 
little  in  advance  or  the  class  and  shall  be  willing 
to  work  and  read.  A  true  man  or  Avoman  will, 
of  course,  '  confess  ignorance  '  frankly.  I  should 
rather  have  in  a  leader  good  practical  knowledge 
of  books  of  reference  and  the  way  to  use  public 
libraries  than  large  specific  knowledge  of  the 
subject  in  hand.  Of  course  it  would  be  better  to 
have  both.  And  I  think  a  class  is  wise  in  leaving 
to  its  leader  the  selection  of  the  topic.  Grant- 
ing these  preliminaries,  I  should  urge,  and 
almost  insist,  that  no  one  should  attend  the  class 
who  would  not  promise  to  attend  to  the  end. 
Nothing  is  so  ruinous  as  the  presence  of  the  vir- 
gins who  have  no  oil  in  their  vessels,  and  are  in 
the  outer  darkness  before  the  course  is  half  done. 
I  think  it  is  well  to  agree  in  the  beginning  on  a 
small  fee — a  dollar,  or  half  a  dollar — which  can 
be  expended  in  books  of  reference,  or  supper,  or 
charity,  or  anything  else  desirable.  The  real 
object  of  the  fee  is  weeding  out  unreliable  mem- 
bers. 

"  Every  member  should  have  a  note  book  and 
pencil,  and  those  who  do  not  take  notes  should 
be  expelled.      What  is  heard  at  siich   classes, 


1 62  The  Choice  of  Books, 

with  no  memorandum  to  connect  it  with  after- 
work,  goes  in  at  one  ear  and  out  at  the  other. 

"  To  make  sure  that  each  member  takes  notes, 
it  is  well  to  keep  one  class  journal.  At  the  end 
of  each  meeting,  assign  the  making  up  of  this 
journal  to  some  one  of  the  class,  selected  by 
accident.  The  length  of  this  journal  should  be 
limited — say  to  a  single  page  of  a  writing-book. 
Otherwise  the  ambitious  members  vie  with  each 
other  in  making  them  long,  which  is  in  no  way 
desirable.  All  you  want  is  the  merest  brief  of 
the  work  done  at  each  meeting.  .  .  . 

"  The  leader  will  very  soon  get  a  knowledge 
of  what  the  different  members  of  the  class  can 
and  will  do.  Indeed,  the  consideration  of  what 
they  want  to  do  will  become  an  important  part 
of  his  arrangements.  He  should  remember  that 
they  are  all  volunteers,  that  it  is  no  business  of 
his  to  drive  up  a  particular  laggard  to  his  work, 
but  rather  to  make  the  class  as  profitable  as  he 
can  for  all." 


What  Books  to  Own.  163 


WHAT  BOOKS  TO  OWN. 

Everybody  ought  to  own  books.  A  house 
without  books  has  been  well  called  a  literary 
Sahara  ;  and  how  many  of  them  there  are  !  We 
are  a  "  reading  people ;"  but  nothing  is  easier  to 
find  than  homes  in  which  the  furniture,  the 
pictures,  the  ornaments — everything,  is  an  object 
of  greater  care  and  expense  than  the  library.  Is 
it  any  wonder  that  their  inmates,  whatever  their 
so-called  wealth  or  comfort,  are  intellectual 
starvelings  ? 

Among  the  many  wise  things  that  Mr.  Beecher 
has  said,  there  is  none  wiser  than  his  words 
about  books  in  the  house.  "  We  form  judg- 
ments of  men,"  says  he,  ^'  from  little  things  about 
their  houses,  of  which  the  owner,  perhaps,  never 
thinks.  In  earlier  years  when  traveling  in  the 
West,  where  taverns  were  scarce,  and  in  some 
places  unknown,  and  every  settler's  house  was  a 
house  of  entertainment,  it  was  a  matter  of  some 
importance  and  some  experience  to  select  wisely 
where  you  should  put  up.  And  we  always 
looked  for  flowers.     If  there  were  no  trees  for 


164  The  Choice  of  Books, 

shade,  no  patch  of  flowers  in  the  yard,  we  were 
suspicious  of  the  place.  But  no  matter  how 
rude  the  cabin  or  rough  the  surroundings,  if  we 
saw  that  the  window  held  a  little  trough  for 
flowers,  and  that  some  vines  twined  about  strings 
let  down  from  the  eaves,  we  were  confident  that 
there  was  some  taste  and  carefulness  in  the  log- 
cabin.  In  a  new  country,  where  people  have  to 
tug  for  a  living,  no  one  will  take  the  trouble  to 
rear  flowers  unless  the  love  of  them  is  pretty 
strong ;  and  this  taste,  blossoming  out  of  plain 
and  uncultivated  people,  is  itself  a  clump  of 
harebells  growing  out  of  the  seams  of  a  rock. 
We  were  seldom  misled.  A  patch  of  flowers 
came  to  signify  kind  people,  clean  beds,  and 
good  bread.  But  in  other  states  of  society  other 
signs  are  more  significant.  Flowers  about  a 
rich  man's  house  may  signify  only  that  he  has  a 
good  gardener,  or  that  he  has  refined  neighbors, 
and  does  what  he  sees  them  do.  But  men  are 
not  accustomed  to  buy  books,  unless  they  want 
them.  If  on  visiting  the  dwelling  of  a  man  in 
slender  means  we  find  that,  he  contents  himself 
with  cheap  carpets  and  very  plain  furniture  in 
order  that  he  may  purchase  books,  he  rises  at 
once  in  our  esteem.     Books  are  not  made  for 


What  Books  to  Chun.  165 

furniture,  but  there  is  nothing  else  that  so  beau- 
tifully furnishes  a  house.  The  plainest  row  of 
books  that  cloth  or  paper  ever  covered  is  more 
significant  of  refinement  than  the  most  elabO' 
rately  carved  etagere  or  sideboard.  Give  us  a 
house  furnished  with  books  rather  than  furniture. 
Both,  if  you  can,  but  books  at  any  rate!  To 
spend  several  days  in  "a  friend's  house,  and 
hunger  for  something  to  read,  while  you  are 
treading  on  costly  carpets  and  sitting  on  luxuri- 
ous chairs,  and  sleeping  upon  down,  is  as  if  one 
were  bribing  your  body  for  the  sake  of  cheating 
your  mind.  Is  it  not  pitiable  to  see  a  man  grow- 
ing rich,  augumenting  the  comforts  of  home, 
and  lavishing  money  on  ostentatious  upholstery, 
upon  the  table,  upon  everything  but  what  the 
soul  needs  ?  We  know  of  many  and  many  a  rich 
man's  house  where  it  would  not  be  safe  to  ask 
for  the  commonest  English  classics.  A  few 
garish  annuals  on  the  table,  a  few  pictorial 
monstrosities,  together  with  the  stock  religious 
books  of  his  *  persuasion,' and  that  is  all!  No 
poets,  no  essayists,  no  historians,  no  travels  or 
biographies,  no  select  fiction,  no  curious  legend- 
ary lore.  But  the  wall  paper  cost  three  dollars 
a  roll,  and  the  carpet  cost  four  dollars  a  yard ! 


1 66  The  Choice  of  Books, 

Books  are  the  windows  through  which  the  soul 
looks  out.  A  home  without  books  is  Hke  a  room 
without  windows.  No  man  has  a  right  to  bring 
up  his  children  without  surrounding  them  with 
books,  if  he  has  the  means  to  buy  them.  It  is  a 
wrong  to  his  family.  He  cheats  them !  Children 
learn  to  read  by  being  in  the  presence  of  books. 
The  love  of  knowledge  comes  with  reading  and 
grows  upon  it.  And  the  love  of  knowledge  in  a 
young  mind  is  almost  a  warrant  against  the 
inferior  excitement  of  passions  and  vices.  Let 
us  pity  these  poor  rich  men  who  live  barrenly  in 
great  bookless  houses !  Let  us  congrr,tulate  the 
poor  that,  in  our  day,  books  are  so  cheap  that  a 
man  may  every  year  add  a  hundred  volumes  to 
his  library  for  the  price  which  his  tobacco  and 
his  beer  cost  him.  Among  the  earhest  ambitions 
to  be  excited  in  clerks,  workmen,  journeymen, 
and,  indeed,  among  all  that  are  struggling  up  in 
life  from  nothing  to  something,  is  that  of  owning 
and  constantly  adding  to  a  library  of  good 
books.  A  little  library  growing  larger  every 
year  is  an  honorable  part  of  a  young  man's 
history.  It  is  a  man's  duty  to  have  books.  A 
library  is  not  a  luxury,  but  one  of  the  necessaries 
of  life." 


What  Books  to  Own,  167 

In  this  connection,  do  jou  remember  Chaucer's 
*'  Clerk  of  Oxenford,"  who  stinted  himself  in 
every  other  way  in  order  that  he  might  have 
money  to  buy  books  ? 

A  Clerk  ther  was  of  Oxenford  also. 

That  unto  logik  hadde  longe  i-go, 

AI-so  lene  was  his  hors  as  is  a  rake, 

And  he  was  not  right  fat,  I  undertake  . 

But  lokede  holwe,  and  therto  soburly, 

Ful  thredbare  wos  his  overest  courtepy. 

For  he  hadde  nought  geten  him  yet  a  benefice, 

Ne  was  not  worth)^  to  haven  an  office. 

For  him  was  lever  have  at  his  beddes  heed 

Twenty  bookes,  clothed  in  blak  and  reed, 

Of  Aristotil,  and  of  his  philosophic 

Than  robus  riche,  or  fithil,  or  sawtrie. 

But  al-though  he  were  a  philosophrc. 
Yet  hadde  he  but  litul  gold  in  cofre  ; 
But  al  that  he  might  gete,  and  his  frends  sende, 
On  bookes  and  his  lernyng  he  it  spende, 
And  busily  gan  for  the  soules  praye. 
Of  hem  that  yaf  him  wherwith  to  scolaye. 
Of  studie  took  he  moste  cure  and  heede. 
Not  00  word  spak  he  more  than  was  neede  ; 
All  that  he  spak  it  was  of  heye  prudence, 
And  short  and  quyk,  and  ful  of  gret  sentence. 
Sownynge  in  moral  manere  was  his  speche, 
And  gladly  wolde  he  lerne,  and  gladly  teche. 

"To  be  without  books  of  your  own  is  the 
abyss  of  penury  ;  don't  endure  it ! "  exclaims 
Ruskin.  Lyman  Abbott  declares  that  "the 
home  ought  no  more  to  be  without  a  library 
than  without  a  dining-room  and  kitchen.  If  you 
have  but  one  room,  and  it  is  lighted  by  the  great 


1 68  The  Choice  of  Books. 

wood  fire  in  the  flaming  fireplace,  as  Abraham 
Lincohi's  was,  do  as  Abraham  Lincohi  did :  pick 
out  one  corner  of  jour  fireplace  for  a  library, 
and  use  it."  Still  another  truth  is  well  stated  by 
Sir  Arthur  Helps  in  a  few  words :  ''  A  man 
never  gets  so  much  good  out  of  a  book  as  when 
he  possesses  it."    ■ 

The  influence  of  the  home  hbrary  upon  all  the 
members  of  the  famil}^,  and  especially  the 
younger  ones,  can  hardly  be  overstated.  The 
biographies  of  literary  men,  and  of  great  men 
not  hterary,  are  full  of  testimonies  to  the  value 
of  the  neighborhood  and  society  of  books  in 
early  youth.  "  Ilike  books,"  says  Dr.  Holmes; 
''  I  was  born  and  bred  among  them."  He  has 
lately  told  us,  in  an  amusing  way,  Avhat  sort  of  a 
library  he  was  ''  brought  up "  in ;  and,  great 
reader  though  he  has  been,  has  lamented  that  he 
has  not  read  even  more  :  "It  was  very  largely 
theological,  so  that  I  was  walled  in  by  solemn 
folios,  making  the  shelves  bend  under  the  loads 
of  sacred  learning.  Walton's  Polygot  Bible  was 
one  of  them.  '  Poli-synopsis '  was  another ;  a 
black  letter  copy  of  Fox's  'Acts  and  Monuments ' 
another,  and  so  on.  Higher  up  on  the  shelves 
stood    Fleury's     '  Ecclesiastical     History,'     in 


What  Books  to  Own.  169 

twenty-five  volumes  octavo.  In  one  of  these 
volumes  a  book-worm  had  eaten  his  way  straight 
through  from  beginning  to  end,  leaving  a  round 
hole  through  every  leaf,  as  if  a  small  shot  had 
gone  through  it.  My  father  wrote  some  verses 
about  it,  I  recollect,  beginning :  '  See  here,  my 
son,  what  industry  can  do.'  I  wish  I  had  profit- 
ed better  by  them.  I  have  not  been  the  most 
indolent  of  mortals,  but  the  industry  of  some  of 
my  acquaintances  .  .  .  makes  me  feel  as  if  I  had 
been  lazy  in  comparison.  I  do  not  remember 
whether  I  have  told  this  in  any  of  my  books  or 
not ;  at  any  rate,  the  lesson  taught  by  the  book- 
worm and  turned  into  verse  by  my  father  is  one 
by  which  any  young  person  may  profit."  An- 
other contemporary  writer,  Edmond  About,  has 
similarly  ascribed  his  formation  of  the  reading 
habit  to  his  father's  care  in  collecting  a  library : 
"  Reading  is  assuredly  an  excellent  thing,  and 
my  father  never  would  forego  it,  after  he  had 
attained  some  leisure  and  affluence.  By  degrees 
he  had  obtained  five  or  six  hundred  well-chosen 
volumes.  He  constantly  turned  over  the  leaves 
of  the  *  Encyclopasdia  of  Useful  Knowledge'  and 
Boret's  manuals ;  he  had  even  subscribed  with 
three  or  four  neighbors  to  a  liberal  Paris  paper ; 


I/O  The  Choice  of  Books, 

but  he  prized  far  above  all  the  knowledge  that  he 
had  gained  quite  alone.  Gently  and  patiently  he 
also  accustomed  me  to  look  and  think  for  myself, 
instead  of  imposing  upon  me  his  ideas,  which  my 
docile,  submissive  spirit,  would  have  blindly  ac- 
cepted." In  lieu  of  a  thousand  similar  utter- 
ances, perhaps  it  will  be  enough  to  quote  what  a 
veteran  journalist,  Charles  T.  Congdon,  has 
written  on  the  encouragement  of  a  love  and  a 
care  for  books  on  the  part  of  children :  "  I  would 
early  encourage  in  children  a  reverence  for 
books.  The  need  of  it  is  the  greater,  because 
school  business  so  tends  to  raggedness  and 
destruction.  And  this  naturally  brings  me  to  a 
topic  which  is  well-worth  considering — I  mean 
the  care  and  preservation  of  books.  I  have 
known  young  people  who  were  highly  particular 
in  the  conservation  of  their  small  libraries  ;  and 
I  think  that  this  is  a  tendency  which  it  would  be 
well  for  parents  and  guardians  to  encourage.  I 
argue  well  of  a  child  who  carefully  conserves  its 
books,  covers  them,  and  ranges  them  on  a  little 
shelf  in  a  little  row.  When  I  encounter  this 
particularity,  I  see  before  me  future  collectors 
and  bibliographers  in  embryo.  And  what  I  say  to 
the  children,  I  would  say  to  adults.   It  is  so  hard 


What  Books  to  Own,  171 

to  get  books,  and  so  easy  to  lend  and  to  lose 
them.  Nobody  can  have  a  library  unless  he 
takes  good  care  of  what  comes  into  it.  All  the 
great  gatherings  have  a  small  start.  There  is  a 
curious  story  of  the  beginning  of  Richard  Heber's 
magnificent  library,  which  is  told  in  Burton's 
'  Book-Hunter '  and  which  is  worth  repeating  here 
because  Burton's  '  Book-Hunter '  has  become 
so  scarce.  Heber  accidentally  met  with  a  little 
volume  called  '  The  Vallie  of  Varietie/  by  Henry 
Peacham.  He  took  it  to  Mr.  Bindley,  the  cele- 
brated collector,  and  asked  him  if  it  was  not  a 
curious  book.  *Yes,'  answered  Mr.  Bindley, 
'  not  very — but  rather  a  curious  book.'  What 
came  of  this,  those  who  know  anything  of  the 
enormous  Heber  collection  will  understand. 
From  that  day  forth  Richard  Heber  was  a  bib- 
liomaniac. He  would  travel  hundreds  of  miles 
to  buy  a  book  which  he  did  not  possess.  ...  In 
advising  young  people  respecting  the  formation 
of  a  library,  my  advice  would  be  not  to  lend  but 
to  keep.  Nobody  can  have  a  decent  collection 
unless  he  takes  good  care  of  it ;  but  it  is  easier  to 
lose  than  to  acquire.  I  know  nothing  like  the 
immorality  which  pervades  the  ranks  of  borrow- 
ers.    They  forget  to  bring  back,  and  sometimes, 


1/2  The  Choice  of  Books. 

I  fear,  they  do  not  forget.  I  would  not  say  a 
word  about  it,  for  fear  of  hurting  the  feehngs  of 
somebody  who  will  find  my  book-plate  in  some 
volume  upon  his  shelf  if  he  will  look  for  it,  unless 
indeed,  he  has  eradicated  it — I  would  not,  I  say, 
speak  a  word  of  the  matter  if  I  were  not  writing 
for  children,  and  begging  them  to  keep  their 
books  together.  It  will  be  such  a  promising  be- 
ginning. It  will  teach  such  habits  of  care.  It  will 
give  them  so  much  pleasure  hereafter  to  look  at 
what  so  delighted  them  when  the  world  was  new 
and  small  things  charming.  One  cannot  expect 
these  young  people  to  be  learned  in  Lowndes,  or 
really  to  know  how  a  book  can  cumulate  in  value  ; 
but  they  may  take  my  word  for  it  that  what  was 
worth  reading,  it  would  be  wise  to  preserve." 

I  have  happened  to  find  some  sensible  words 
of  the  same  sort  in  a  country  weekly,  the  very 
place  where  such  expressions  are  hkely  to  do 
most  good  to  the  local  pubhc  :  "  Nothing  is  more 
important  to  young  people  than  an  early  love  for 
good  books.  In  no  way  can  this  love  be  better 
fostered  than  by  the  formation  of  home  libraries. 
No  matter  how  few  or  small  the  books  are,  to 
commence  with,  they  will  make  a  beginning,  and 
you  will  wonder  at  its  growth.     Don't  have  the 


What  Books  to  Own.  173 

books  scattered  about,  but  collect  them.  Any 
boy  can  make  shelves  which  are  good  enough, 
and  the  very  act  of  getting  your  books  together 
will  form  a  desire  for  more.  When  you  have 
thus  made  a  beginning,  make  it  a  rule  never  to 
add  a  poor  or  '  trashy '  book.  A  good  book  is 
worth  a  hundred  of  the  other  kind.  In  this  day 
of  cheap  books  there  is  no  reason  w^iy  every  boy. 
.  .  ^.  need  not  have  something  of  a  library."  And 
boys  may  wxll  remember  that  from  such  a  be- 
ginning great  results  may  grow.  From  no 
greater  a  collection  than  any  young  reader  can 
easily  make,  the  historian  Gibbon  tells  us  that  he 
gradually  formed  a  numerous  and  select  library, 
"  the  foundation  of  my  works,  and  the  best  com- 
fort of  my  life,  both  at  home  and  abroad." 

Aside  from  the  reading  of  books,  their  mere 
society  and  companionship  is  of  high  advantage. 
Boswell  tells  us  that  Dr.  Johnson  thought  it  wxll 
even  to  look  at  the  backs  of  books :  ''  No  sooner 
had  we  made  our  bow  to  Mr.  Cambridge,  in  his 
library,  than  Johnson  ran  eagerly  to  one  side  of 
the  room,  intent  on  poring  over  the  backs  of  the 
books.  Sir  Joshua  (Reynolds)  observed,  aside, 
•  He  runs  to  the  books  as  I  do  the  pictures  ;  but 
1  have  the  advantage,  I  can  see  much  more  of 


1/4  The   Choice  of  Books, 

the  pictures  than  he  can  of  the  books.'  Mr. 
Cambridge,  upon  this,  pohtely  said,  '  Dr.  John- 
son, I  am  going,  with  your  pardon,  to  accuse 
myself,  for  I  have  the  same  custom  which  I  per- 
ceive you  have.  But  it  seems  odd  that  we 
should  have  such  a  desire  to  look  at  the  backs 
of  books.'  Johnson,  ever  ready  for  contest,  in- 
stantly started  from  his  reverie,  wheeled  about, 
and  answered,  '  Sir,  the  reason  is  very  plain. 
Knowledge  is  of  two  kinds.  We  know  a  subject 
ourselves,  or  we  know  where  we  can  find  infor- 
mation upon  it.  When  we  inquire  into  any  sub- 
ject, the  first  thing  we  have  to  do  is  to  know 
what  books  have  treated  of  it.  This  leads  us  to 
look  at  catalogues,  and  the  backs  of  books  in 
libraries.'  Sir  Joshua  observed  to  me  the  extra- 
ordinary promptitude  with  which  Johnson  flew 
upon  an  argument.  '  Yes,'  said  I,  '  he  has  no 
formal  preparations,  no  flourishing  with  his 
sword  ;  he  is  through  your  body  in  an  instant.'  '* 
People  who  are  accustomed  to  know  where  par- 
ticular books  are,  can  fiy  to  them  in  an  emer- 
gency ;  and  sometimes  a  little  library  at  home, 
well  understood,  is  a  more  effective  armory  than 
a  great  collection,  unknown. 

Dr.  J.  A.   Langford,  an  English  writer  who 


W?tat  Books  to  Own,  i75 

has  lately  made  a  serviceable  collection  of  quota- 
tions from  English  authors  on  books  and  read- 
ing, cites  Charles  Lamb's  expression :  **  What  a 
place  to  be  in  is  an  old  library  !  "  and  then  pro- 
ceeds to  speak  of  the  society  of  books,  in  affec- 
tionate words  with  which  any  book-lover  can 
sympathize :  "  It  is  a  delight  to  merely  look  at 
books — in  a  state  of  quiet  reverie  to  dream  of 
the  rich  fruit  which  you  will  not  pluck,  of  the 
sweet  grapes  which  you  will  not  taste.  There, 
spread  before  you,  is  a  banquet  fit  for  gods,  and 
the  consciousness  that  you  could  eat  and  be 
satisfied  fills  up  your  cup  of  pleasure  to  the 
brim.  It  is  a  feast  at  which  the  imagination 
supplies  ambrosia  and  nectar,  and,  for  the  time, 
coarser  food  is  neither  required  nor  desired.  You 
walk  in  meadows  of  asphodel,  and  in  the  gardens 
of  the  Hesperides,  and  have  no  wish  to  pluck  a 
flower,  or  to  gather  the  fruit.  It  is  enough  that 
they  are  there,  and  that  the  spirits  who  guard 
them  are  ready  to  supply  you  with  both."  Nor 
is  such  a  sentiment  any  less  likely  to  come,  in  a 
true  sense,  to  the  owner  of  a  few  books,  than  to 
the  visitor  of  the  largest  library.  The  true 
owner  of  books  loves  his  books,  and  the}^  come 
to  have  real  personalities.     When  poor  Southey, 


17^  The  Choice  of  Books, 

after  a  life  of  hard  work  among  books,  lost  his 
mind,  and  even  the  power  to  read  a  word,  he 
spent  hours  and  hours  in  wandering  through  his 
library,  feeling  his  books,  and  petting  them,  and 
laying  his  head  against  them. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  advise  buyers  to  possess 
this  or  that  particular  book,  nor  to  present  to 
them  a  definite  list  of  ten,  fifty,  a  hundred,  or  a 
thousand  volumes,  and  say,  "  Buy  these,  and 
you  will  have  a  library."  The  preceding  chap- 
ters in  this  series  have  sufficiently  indicated,  I 
trust,  what  sort  of  books  one  ought  to  read,  and 
how  his  selection  of  books  to  own  may  best  be 
guided  and  limited.  Any  intelligent  person  can 
tell,  when  he  reads  a  catalogue  of  publications, 
or  visits  a  book  store,  what  are  the  standard 
books  for  all  time,  and  what  are  those  which  are 
good  books  to  read.  Every  one's  conscience, 
too,  will  tell  him  Avhat  books  to  shun.  Some 
volumes  are  to  be  read  for  a  temporary  purpose, 
and  the  choice  of  books  to  own  should,  of  course, 
be  borne  in  mind.  Buy  nothing  that  you  are,  or 
will  be,  ashamed  of,  and  remember  that  "  art  is 
long,  and  time  is  fleeting."  In  a  word,  choose 
your  books  as  you  would  choose  your  friends 
and  helpers. 


IVhat  Books  to  Own,  177 

The  collector  of  a  home  hbrary  should  not  be 
discouraged  because  there  are  so  many  books  in 
the  world,  and  he  can  buy  so  few.  Says  Em- 
erson :  "  I  visit  occasionally  the  Cambridge 
Hbrary,  and  I  can  seldom  go  there  without 
renewing  the  conviction  that  the  best  of  it  all  is 
already  within  the  four  walls  of  my  study  at 
home.  The  inspection  of  the  catalogue  brings 
me  continually  back  to  the  few  standard  writers 
who  are  on  every  private  shelf ;  and  to  these  it 
can  afford  only  the  most  slight  and  casual  addi- 
tions. The  crowds  and  centuries  of  books  are 
only  commentary  and  elucidation,  echoes  and 
weakeners  of  these  few  great  voices  of  Time." 
In  precisely  the  same  strain  are  these  words 
from  an  editorial  in  The  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  of 
London  :  "  It  is  some  comfort  to  reflect  that 
without  possessing  a  library  equal  to  that  of  the 
British  Museum,  and  indeed  one  which  can  be 
coaxed  into  a  single  room  of  moderate  dimen- 
sions, one  may  have  everything  in  the  Avay  of 
literature  which  has  been  so  far  produced  by  the 
human  race  which  is  still  worth  reading — not  to 
say  a  good  deal  more.  A  large  collection  of 
English  poets,  from  Chaucer  to  Cowper,  will  go 
upon  a  small  shelf ;  and  all  that  has  since  been 


lyS  The  Choice  of  Books. 

written  of  any  importance  will  fail  to  fill  another. 
Three-fourths  even  of  that  collection  is  of  interest 
only  in  a  historical  sense.  And  truly  it  suggests 
melancholy  as  well  as  comfort  to  look  round  any 
decent  hbrary,  to  mark  the  collected  works  even 
of  the  greatest,  and  to  remember  how  small  is 
the  proportion  of  grain  to  chaff." 

As  for  the  choice  of  editions  of  books  to  own, 
a  remark  of  Dr.  Johnson's  is  worth  remember- 
ing, though,  of  course,  not  of  universal  apph  ca- 
tion :  "  Books  that  you  may  carry  to  the  fire,  and 
hold  readily  in  your  hand,  are  the  most  useful 
after  all." 

The  care  of  the  home  library  should  chiefly 
consist  of  keeping  its  contents  accessible  and 
neat.  Books  that  are  imprisoned,  or  are  kept  in 
unfrequented  rooms,  are  deprived  of  half  their 
usefulness.  It  is  better  to  have  a  book  worn  out 
with  use,  or  faded  by  sunlight,  or  kept  where  it 
needs  a  daily  dusting,  than  to  have  it  preserved 
like  a  stuffed  bird  in  a  glass  case.  Open  shelves 
are  better  than  glass-doored  book-cases,  and  the 
original  binding  of  a  book  is  better  than  a  brown- 
paper  cover.  Who  would  like  a  friend  always 
dressed  in  a  "  duster "  ?  or  who  would  enjoy 
living  in  one  of  those  melancholy  rooms  where 


M^hat  Books  to  Own,  i79 

all  the  furniture  is  shrouded  in  linen  ?  Brown- 
paper  book-covers  may  be  excusable  in  public 
libraries,  but  never  in  private  ones. 

A  few  hints,  selected  from  a  recent  paper  by 
S.  L.  Boardman,  will  be  found  serviceable: 
"  Whatever  the  room  chosen  for  the  library,  let 
it  be  warm  and  sunny,  on  the  south  side  of  the 
house  if  possible,  and  plainly  furnished,  for  what 
furnishing  so  gorgeous  and  attractive  as  good 
books?  An  open  fire  is  the  only  means  of 
warming  that  should  ever  be  thought  of  in  a 
library  room.  .  .  .  And  remember:  no  glazed 
doors !  I  was  gratified  a  few  weeks  ago,  in 
visiting  a  friend,  to  find  that  he  had  taken  the 
glazed  doors  from  his  library  cases  ;  and  I  wish 
everybody  who  has  these  useless  things  would 
do  the  same.  They  are  not  a  protection  against 
dust ;  they  are  always  in  the  way ;  no  one  is 
going  to  carry  away  your  books  without  leave 
when  you  invite  him  to  your  library  ;  and  when 
you  want  a  book  you  do  not  care  to  be  bothered 
by  a  bunch  of  keys.  Besides,  books  have  a  far 
more  cheerful  and  social  look  when  you  can 
readily  see  them,  and  handle  them,  and  become 
acquainted  with  them,  than  when  they  are 
locked  up  as  though  you  were  afraid  somebody 


i8o  The  Choice  of  Books, 

would  read  them,  or  that  they  would  make 
somebody  happy  if  he  could  only  turn  over  their 
magic  pages.  Open  cases,  then,  for  all  books  in 
private  libraries,  especially  in  what  we  call 
*  working  libraries.'  .  .  .  Do  not  put  too  much 
money  in  expensive  and  luxuriant  bindings.  I 
am  not  talking  to  the  wealthy  bibUophile,  who 
is  able  to  employ  Bedford,  or  Pawson,  or  Charles 
White  to  bind  his  books  regardless  of  cost,  but 
to  the  average  book  lover  or  collector.  Put  the 
extra  money  your  fine  bindings  would  cost  into 
more  and  more  serviceable  books,  and  be  happy. 
Choose  editions  in  plain  substantial  dress,  and 
leave  elaborate  gilding,  and  bhnd  tooling,  and 

silk   linings,  to   your   exquisite  fancier 

Books  should  never  be  crowded  tightly  on  the 
shelves.  They  should  be  so  kindly  disposed  as 
to  gently  support  each  other.  Great  injury 
comes  from  placing  them  too  closely  together. 
Books  are  generally  taken  down  from  their 
positions  by  the  top  of  the  back,  and  in  many, 
many  instances  I  have  seen  books,  some  of  which 
were  in  their  day  strongly  bound,  completely 
broken  away  at  the  back  from  being  pulled 
carelessly  out  of  position.  In  removing  a  book 
from  its  place  the  proper  way  is  first  to  loosen 


What  Books  to  Own.  i8i 

the  books  standing  each  side  of  the  one  wanted, 
by  giving  them  a  gentle  sideward  pressure ; 
then,  tipping  the  book  from  you  at  the  top  and 
taking  hold  of  the  bottom,  gently  draw  it  out. 
Do  not  pile  books  flat-ways  upon  the  top  of 
those  standing  upright  in  the  case.  It  injures 
those  upon  which  they  rest  very  much.  Re- 
member the  advice  of  old  Richard  De  Bury 
centuries  ago, '  never  to  approach  a  volume  with 
uncleanly  hands.'  Books  are  easily  soiled,  paper 
and  binding  retaining  the  imperfection  of  the 
least  pressure  of  unwashed  hands.  Dust  off  the 
books  every  day,  and  remember  that,  like  house 
plants,  they  need  a  constant  supply  of  fresh  air. 
They  are  dear  friends.  We  become  attached 
to  them  from  constant  intercourse,  and  when  we 
remember  how  much  enjoyment  we  receive  from 
their  silent,  tender  companionship,  we  should  m 
return  treat  them  well,  give  them  the  best  room 
in  the  house,  and  teach  our  children  and  visitors 
to  pay  to  them  due  respect." 


1 82  The  Choice  of  Books. 


THE  USE  OF  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES. 

Every  town  ought  to  have  a  Hbrary  contain- 
ing as  many  volumes  as  the  town  has  inhabitants. 
Such  a  Hbrary  becomes  at  once  the  center  of  the 
intellectual  life  of  the  town,  and  affects  the 
morals  and  manners  of  the  entire  community. 
And  more,  its  influence  stretches  out  into  the 
whole  country,  wherever  its  readers  may  chance 
to  go  ;  and  its  importance  is  not  for  a  moment  to 
be  compared  with  the  entire  sum  of  the  mercan- 
tile and  manufacturing  interests  by  which  it  is 
surrounded.  A  town  with  a  library  can  be  dis- 
tinguished easily  from  one  which  lacks  any  such 
collection  of  books  ;  and  those  parts  of  the  coun- 
try in  which  town  libraries  abound  are  the  parts 
which  are  most  influential  in  every  department 
of  intellectual  and  even  material  labor.  "  Let 
those,"  says  a  recent  writer,  "  who  pride  them- 
selves upon  their  devotion  to  the  so-called  prac- 
tical, reflect  that  the  advantages  of  a  library  are 
no  longer  of  a  purely  literary  character,  and  are 
becoming  less  and  less  so  ;  that  the  '  arts  and 
mysteries '  of  manufacture  are  no  longer  taught 


The   Use  of  Public  Libraries,         183 

by  word  of  mouth  alone  to  indentured  appren- 
tices, but  that  the  '  master  workmen  '  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  speak  through  books  to  all ;  and 
that  in  proportion  as  our  workmen  become  in- 
telligent and  skillful  does  their  labor  increase  in 
value  to  themselves  and  to  the  state." 

"  The  usefulness  of  a  public  library  to  all  classes 
of  the  community,  and  some  of  the  methods  by 
which  that  usefulness  miay  be  extended,  have 
been  well  stated  in  an  address  to  the  people  of 
Springfield,  Mass.,  on  behalf  of  the  city  library 
of  that  place.  **  Here,"  says  this  address,  "  are 
more  than  40,000  volumes  of  books,  old  and  new, 
from  which  your  selections  can  be  made.  Cata- 
logues Lying  upon  the  tables  will  aid  you  in  your 
choice ;  if  you  do  not  readily  find  what  you  want, 
the  librarian  and  his  assistants  are  always  ready 
to  help  you.  Those  who  frequent  the  library 
will  testify  that  the  intelligent  and  painstaking 
service  of  these  librarians  in  aiding  those  who 
are  selecting  books  and  studying  subjects  is  of 
great  advantage  to  them.  Here  are  many  books 
of  reference  of  which  all  our  reading  people 
ought  to  avail  themselves.  Here  are  the  great 
encyclopgedias,  the  dictionaries,  the  gazetteers, 
the  concordances,  that  will  throw  light  on  the 


x84  The  Choice  of  Books, 

puzzling  questions  you  meet  in  your  reading^ 
You  have  only  to  step  into  the  library  as  you 
pass  and  obtain  the  information  you  desire. 
Many  of  you  might  turn  the  library  to  good  ac- 
count in  3'our  several  callings.  Mechanics  who 
seek  to  perfect  themselves  in  the  industrial  arts 
may  obtain  here  books,  some  of  them  finely  illus- 
trated, on  physics,  on  mechanical  engineering 
and  drawing,  and  on  various  topics  in  which 
they  are  interested.  Architects,  builders,  and 
landscape  gardeners  may  gain  from  the  treatises 
on  these  shelves,  hints  that  will  be  of  use  to 
them  in  practical  work  as  well  as  in  design. 
Those  who  are  engaged,  whether  on  a  large  or 
a  small  scale,  in  agricultural  or  horticultural 
pursuits,  may  derive  considerable  assistance 
from  the  treatises  and  reports  filling  a  large 
department  of  this  library.  Students  of  art  will 
find  here  not  only  a  variety  of  critical  and  prac- 
tical treatises,  but  a  good  collection  of  prints 
and  engravings.  To  professional  men,  whether 
clerg3'men,  physicians,  law3^ers,  or  journalists, 
the  library  affords  many  advantages.  It  con- 
tains a  fair  selection  of  books  representing  the 
literature  of  each  of  these  professions,  and  valu- 
able books,  that  individuals  are  not  always  able 


The   Use  of  Public  Libraries,         185 

to  procure  for  themselves,  are  added  from  time 
to  time.  Those  who  are  interested  in  the  study 
of  the  Bible  may  consult  in  the  library  a  large 
and  admirable  selection  of  Bible  dictionaries, 
commentaries,  introductions,  histories,  etc., 
covering  and  illustrating  the  whole  subject. 
Those  who  are  studying  any  question  of  im- 
mediate popular  interest — temperance,  labor, 
finance,  tariff,  woman  suffrage,  education — may 
easily,  with  a  little  help  from  the  librarians,  sup- 
ply themselves  here  with  ample  information. 
The  teachers  in  our  public  and  private  schools 
may  make  the  library  very  serviceable  to  them- 
selves and  to  their  pupils  by  consulting  it  fre- 
quently, and  by  directing  the  reading  of  students. 
Upon  many  of  the  topics  taught  in  the  grammar 
schools,  and  upon  most  of  those  taught  in  the 
high  school,  intelligent  boys  and  girls  could  gain 
here  much  additional  information  that  would 
freshen  and  confirm  their  acquisitions  in  the 
school-room.  The  librarj^  is  used  in  this  manner 
to  some  extent  by  teachers  and  pupils,  but  the 
benefits  thus  arising  might  be  indefinitely  in- 
creased. Some  of  the  teachers,  by  arrangement 
with  the  librarian,  make  themselves  responsible 
for  books  which  they  loan  to  pupils  who  make 


1 86  The   Choice  of  Books, 

good  use  of  them,  as  supplementing  their  text- 
books. To  the  general  reader  as  well  as  to  the 
special  student,  the  library  offers  an  ample  pro- 
vision. History,  biography,  social  science, 
political  science,  travel  and  discovery,  poetry, 
fiction,  essays,  sketches — all  are  here  in  great 
variety.  And  all  this  is  free  to  all.  This  great 
array  of  books,  this  pleasant  hall  lighted  and 
v/armed  and  kept  neat  and  orderly,  the  service 
of  these  polite  librarians,  is  without  charge  to 

the  reader,  young  or  old Our  citizens  are 

justly  proud  of  their  noble  library.  They  have 
received,  already,  great  benefit  and  pleasure  from 
the  use  "A  it.  But  it  might  be  used  much  more 
freely  and  with  greatly  increased  profit.  It  ought 
to  afford  not  only  diversion  to  our  idle  people, 
but  instruction  and  stimulus  to  our  working 
people  and  our  thinking  people.  Rightly  used, 
it  will  be  a  means  of  great  good  to  the  whole 
communitv-  To  the  young,  especially,  it  should 
be  of  incalculable  advantage.  To  those  who 
work  in  our  shops  and  factories,  and  whose  priv- 
ileges of  education  have  been  limited,  it  offers  a 
great  opportunity.  None  of  them  ought  to  feel 
lonesome  or  homeless  so  long  as  its  hospitable 
doors   are   open.     To  bring  the  library  before 


The   Use  of  Public  Libraries.         187 

their  notice  and  encourage  them  in  freely  using 
it,  is  one  of  the  obvious  duties  of  those  who  have 
any  responsibihty  for  those  young  men  and 
women." 

The  connection  between  pubhc  hbraries  and 
pubUc  educational  systems  has  attracted  new 
attention,  of  recent  years.  The  superintendent 
of  the  Boston  schools  says  that  the  pubhc  library 
stands  of  right  at  the  head  of  the  .educational 
system  of  the  city,  of  which  it  forms  a  true  part. 
And  on  the  other  hand,  he  urges  that  the  schools 
should  give  instruction  in  the  best  methods  of 
reading  good  books  :  "  Reading  is  an  art  which 
with  a  little  of  almost  everything,  has  been  taught 
in  the  public  schools  immemorially  ;  but  how  to 
read  a  book — an  entire  book — is  an  acquisition 
made  by  few,  and  never,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
systematically  taught  in  the  public  schools." 

The  public  librarian,  indeed,  should  be  a  pub- 
lic instructor.  Much  of  what  may  be  said  of 
the  value  of  the  teacher's  influence  upon  indi- 
vidual scholars — says  Charles  A.  Cutter,  libra- 
rian of  the  Boston  Athenasum — and  of  the  satis- 
faction and  encouragement  which  comes  from  it, 
"  is  true,  with  very  shght  changes  of  the  libra- 
rian.    The  latter  must  continue  what  the  teacher 


1 88  The  Choice  of  Books, 

has  begun  ;  he  must  make  a  beginning,  if  he  can, 
where  the  teacher  has  failed,  and  for  those  with 
whom  the  teacher  has  not  come  in  contact ;  Hke 
the  teacher,  he  must  add  this  to  duties  already 
engrossing ;  like  him,  he  must  make  a  constant 
series  of  experiments  ;  and  again,  like  him,  he 
must  be — and  no  doubt  he  will  be — content  if  in 
one  case  in  a  hundred  he  produces  any  visible 
result.  He  needs  some  interest  and  effort  like 
this,  or  else  his  work,  however  well  done,  is  only 
the  work  of  a  clerk  or  of  a  book-worm." 

"  I  want  very  much  indeed,"  says  Charles  Fran- 
cis Adams,  Jr.,  "  to  see  our  really  admirable  town 
library  become  a  more  living  element  than  it  now 
is  in  our  school  system — its  complement,  in  fact. 
Neither  trustee  nor  librarian,  no  matter  how 
faithful  or  zealous  they  may  be,  can  make  it  so ; 
for  we  cannot  know  enough  of  the  individual 
scholars  to  give  them  that  which  they  personally 
need,  and  which  only  they  will  take ;  you  cannot 
feed  them  until  you  know  what  they  like,  and 
that  we,  in  dealing  with  the  mass,  cannot  get  at. 
You  teachers,  however,  can  get  at  it,  if  you  only 
choose  to.  To  enable  you  to  do  this,  the  trus- 
tees of  the  library  have  adopted  a  new  rule, 
under  which  each  of  your  schools  may  be  made 


The   Use  of  Public  Libraries.         189 

practically  a  branch  library.  The  master  can 
himself  select  and  take  from  the  library  a  num- 
ber of  volumes,  and  keep  them  on  his  desk  for 
circulation  among  the  scholars  under  his  charge. 
He  can  study  their  tastes  and  ransack  the  library 
to  gratify  them.  Nay,  more,  if  you  will  but  find 
out  what  your  scholars  want — what  healthy 
books  are  in  demand  among  them — the  trustees 
of  the  hbrary  will  see  to  it  that  you  do  not  want 
material.  You  shall  have  all  the  books  you  will 
call  for.  When,  indeed,  you  begin  to  call,  we 
shall  know  exactly  what  to  buy  ;  and  then,  at  last, 
we  could  arrange  in  printed  bulletins  the  courses 
of  reading  which  your  experience  would  point 
out  as  best,  and  every  book  would  be  accessible. 
From  that  time,  both  schools  and  library  would 
begin  to  do  their  full  work  together,  and  the  last 
would  become  what  it  ought  to  be,  the  natural 
complement  of  the  first — the  People's  College." 

The  choice  of  books  for  public  libraries  should 
be  made  with  care,  but  with  a  full  remembrance 
of  the  fact  that  there  are  many  tastes  in  the 
community,  and  that,  while  those  tastes  can  and 
must  be  raised,  they  must  first  be  reached. 
"  What  books  shall  be  bought  ?  "  asks  the  Library 
Journal,  "what  kinds  of  books?  and  what  books 


190  The  Choice  of  Books, 

of  their  kinds  ? — is  almost  the  vital  question  in 
all  libraries  ;  most  pressing  in  the  smallest,  which 
have  least  to  spend  for  books  and  most  need  to 
foster  public  appreciation.  Shall  we  have  fiction 
or  no  fiction,  or  shall  we  have  George  Eliot  only 
and  not  Mrs.  Holmes  ?  '  The  public  library  is 
not  to  be  the  private  workshop  for  the  few 
scholars ;'  *  the  public  library  is  not  to  pander  to 
depraved  popular  tastes  ; ' — these  are  growl  and 

counter-growl We   suppose    all    would 

agree  upon  these  simple  principles — (i)  a  library 
must  not  circulate  bad  books ;  (2)  it  must,  within 
this  limit,  give  the  public  the  books  it  wants ; 
(3)  it  must  teach  it  to  want  better  books.  These 
afford,  in  general,  plain  sailing,  bad  books  mean- 
ing immoral  books,  books  absolutely  hurtful. 
But  there  are  those  who  would  exclude  under 
that  term  respectively  unliterary  books,  bad  in 
style  ;  '  sensational '  books ;  all  fiction  ;  books 
religiously  unorthodox.  It  is  sufficient  to  reply 
that  books  for  reading  are  of  no  use  unless  read, 
and  that  if  you  can  get  a  man  to  reading  he  is 
sure,  as  Mr.  Hale  would  say,  to  read  '  up  and 
not  down.'  "  But  we  must  remember  that  young 
readers  should  not  be  given  too  great  influence 
in  the  selection  of  the  books,  and  under  no  cir- 


The   Use  of  Public  Libraries,         195 

cumstances  whatever  should  they  be  furnished 
with  positively  bad  books.  H.  A.  Homes  urges 
a  preliminary  reading  of  books  by  competent 
committees,  as  has  been  done  with  reference  to 
Sunday-school  books,  by  some  ladies  of  Boston 
and  Cambridge  :  **  A  large  part  of  the  reading 
in  public  town  libraries  is  done  by  persons  under 
twenty-one  years  of  age.  For  many  Sunday- 
school  libraries  it  has  been  found  necessary  to 
adopt  a  rule  that  no  book  should  be  received 
which  had  not  previously  been  read  and  ap- 
proved by  a  committee  of  the  school,  notwith- 
standing it  had  been  written,  approved,  and 
published  expressly  for  Sunday-schools.  Is  it 
not  even  more  important  and  urgent  to  secure, 
by  some  similar  measure,  that  the  books  to  be 
loaned  from  institutions  so  influential  as  free 
town  libraries  should  have  some  such  guarantee 
that  they  will  be  works  elevating  and  ennobling 
to  the  minds  of  their  readers  ?  " 

An  important  matter  is  the  location  of  the 
library  building  or  room.  A.  M.  Pendleton  has 
some  serviceable  hints  on  this  subject  in  The 
Library  Journal:  "First,  let  the  room  be  cen- 
trally located,  not  geographically,  but  in  the 
most  populous  part  of  the  town.     Plant  it  among 


192  The  Choice  of  Books, 

the  people,  where  its  presence  will  be  seen  and 
felt.  Next,  other  things  being  equal,  it  is  better 
to  have  it  upon  the  first  floor,  so  that  passers-by 
will  see  its  goodly  array  of  books,  and  be 
tempted  to  inspect  them.  Care  should  be  taken) 
to  have  it  well  lighted,  and  if  possible  have  a 
second  room,  in  which  visitors  can  linger  over 
periodicals  and  other  entertaining  works.  The 
wise  library  manager,  like  the  children  of  this 
world,  will  hold  out  as  many  seductions  as  pos- 
sible. Encourage  dalliance  by  scattering  about 
temptations.  If  the  sight  of  evil  tempts  to  evil, 
so  the  presence  of  good  things  quickens  the 
desire  to  possess  them.  A  cheery  room,  taste- 
fully arranged  and  kept,  a  generous  display  of 
books,  and  numerous  persons  coming  and  going, 
will  determine  the  popular  tide  to  your  quarters. 
These  are  elements  of  a  successful  library,  often 
as  important  as  the  character  of  the  books  them- 
selves. A  library  pushed  into  a  dark  corner  or 
an  unsightly  closet,  or  lodged  in  the  rear  part  of 
a  store,  will  never  have  a  strong  hold  upon  a 
people.  If  it  be  possible,  have  it  by  itself.  Do 
not  locate  it  in  a  store  because  a  clerk  who  is 
busy  with  other  things  most  of  the  time  will 
attend  to  it  now  and  then.     Cheap  labor  is  often 


The   Use  of  Public  Libraries,         193 

the  most  expensive.  Things  that  will  do,  make- 
shifts of  one  kind  or  another,  we  are  all  com- 
pelled to  accept ;  but  accept  them  as  the  last 
resort,  and  not  as  the  ready  confession  of  our 
good-for-nothingness.  Covet  the  best  things, 
and  when  attainable,  be  satisfied  with  nothing 
less." 

Let  it  not  be  thought  that  a  town  library  is 
only  a  luxury  for  great  cities  or  rich  communi- 
ties. "  In  the  work  of  popular  education  through 
libraries,  it  is,  after  all,  not  the  few  great  libra- 
ries, but  the  thousand  small  that  may  do  most 
for  the  people."  The  present  writer  can  sin- 
cerely say  that  he  owes  more  to  the  library  of 
his  native  town  (then  containing  perhaps  four 
thousand  volumes)  than  he  does  to  the  much 
larger  college  library  of  which  he  afterwards 
had  the  use.  And  others  feel  a  similar  debt  of 
gratitude  to  town  libraries  far  smaller  than  this 
— libraries  of  no  more  than  a  few  hundred  books, 
or  even  less,  kept  in  a  few  poor  shelves  in  some 
town-house  or  country  store.  The  thing  to  do  is 
to  make  a  beginning  of  a  local  library.  If  your 
community  has  none,  it  ought  to  be  thoroughly 
ashamed  of  itself.  There  must  be  ten  good 
books  in  it,  or  the  money  to  buy  them.     Gather 


194  The  Choice  of  Books, 

these  together  and  start  a  Hbrary  at  once ;  the 
hfe  of  the  whole  neighborhood  will  immediately 
be  made  that  much  the  nobler  and  stronger. 


The   True  Service  of  Reading,        i95 


THE  TRUE  SERVICE  OF  READING. 

The  true  service  of  reading  is  something  more 
than  to  afford  amusement  for  an  idle  hour. 
Most  readers  will  admit  this,  although  their 
practice  is  too  often  opposed  to  the  principle 
whose  theoretical  correctness  they  readily  ac- 
cept. And  it  is  also  to  be  remembered  that  the 
proper  end  to  be  sought  in  reading  is  something 
far  more  than  mere  acquirement  of  knowledge, 
or  attainment  of  individual  culture.  A  wise  or 
a  highly  cultured  person  may  be  one  who  has 
missed  the  genuine  good  of  reading,  quite  as 
effectually  as  though  he  were  ignorant  and  un- 
cultured. The  end  and  aim  of  all  reading  should 
be  the  proper  development  of  a  true  and  highly 
personal  character,  and  the  utilizing  of  one's  own 
acquirements  in  the  work  of  making  other  men 
nobler  and  better  than  they  now  are. 

In  this  end  and  aim  unwise  writers  and  readers 
manifestly  have  no  share.  "  Literature,"  says 
President  Porter,  "  must  respect  ethical  truth,  if 
it  is  to  reach  its  highest  achievements,  or  attain 
that   place  in  the  admiration   and  love   of  the 


19^  The  Choice  of  Books, 

human  race  which  we  call  fame.  The  literature 
which  does  not  respect  ethical  truth,  ordinarily 
survives  as  literature  but  a  single  generation." 
But  literature  which  does  respect  ethical  truth 
is  that  which  survives  through  the  centuries, 
and  which  plays  its  part  in  the  betterment  of  the 
world  long  after  the  whole  face  of  civilization 
has  changed.  He  who  recognizes  hterature  of 
this  class,  and  takes  it  to  his  heart,  with  the 
resolve  to  use  it  as  a  trust  rather  than  aselfishl}-- 
hoarded  possession,  gets  the  greatest  benefit  for 
himself,  and  brings  the  greatest  advantage  to 
others.  The  sense  of  the  preciousness  and  the 
perpetuity  of  good  books,  in  their  influence  on 
the  world  through  the  ages,  is  one  which  very 
many  writers  have  expressed  in  words  of  rever- 
ence. Keats  exclaims,  in  one  of  his  glowing 
Ivrics: 


Bardn  of  passion  and  of  mirth, 
Ye  have  left  your  souls  on  earth  ! 
Have  ye  souls  in  heaven  too, 
Double-lived  in  regions  new?  .... 
Thus  ye  live  on  high,  and  then 
On  the  earth  ye  live  again  ; 
And  the  souls  )^e  left  behind  you 
Teach  us,  here,  the  way  to  find  you, 
Where  your  other  souls  are  joying. 
Never  slumber'd,  never  cloying. 
Here,  your  earth-born  souls  will  speak 
To  mortals,  of  their  little  week  ; 


The   True  Service  of  Reading.       197 


Of  their  sorrows  and  delights  ; 
Of  their  passions  and  their  spites  ; 
Of  their  glor}-  and  their  shame  ; 
What  doth  strengthen  and  what  maim. 
Thus  ye  teach  us,  every  daj', 
Wisdom,  though  fled  far  away. 
Bards  of  passion  and  of  mirth  ; 
Ye  have  left  your  souls  on  earth  ! 
Ye  have  souls. in  heaven  too, 
Double-lived  in  reglous  new  ! 


"  Of  all  the  things  which  man  can  do  or  make 
here  below,  by  far  the  most  momentous,  wonder- 
ful and  worthy,  are  the  things  we  call  books/* 
says  Carlyle.  And  again  Carlyle  declares : 
"  Certainly  the  art  of  .writing  is  the  most  miracu- 
lous of  all  things  man  has  devised.  Odm's  runes 
were  the  first  form  of  the  Avork  of  a  hero  ;  books, 
written  words,  are  still  miraculous  runes,  the 
latest  form !  In  books  lies  the  soul  of  the  whole 
past  time  ;  the  articulate,  audible  voice  of  the 
past,  when  the  body  and  material  substance  of 
it  has  altogether  vanished  like  a  dream.  Mighty 
fleets  and  armies,  harbors  and  arsenals,  vast 
cities,  high-domed,  many-engined  —  they  are 
precious,  great :  but  what  do  they  become  ? 
Agamemnon,  the  many  Agamemnons,  Pericleses, 
and  their  Greece  ;  all  is  gone  now  to  some  ruined 
fragments,  dumb,  mournful  wrecks  and  blocks  ; 
but  the  books  of  Greece !  There  Greece,  to  every 


198  The  Choice  of  Books, 

thinker,  still  very  literally  lives  ;  can  be  called  up 
again  into  life.  No  magic  rune  is  stranger  than 
a  book.  All  that  mankind  has  done,  thought, 
gained,  or  been  :  it  is  lying  in  magic  preservation 
in  the  pages  of  books.  They  are  the  chosen  pos- 
session of  men."  In  The  Spectator  is  this  elo- 
quent passage  by  Addison :  "  As  the  Supreme 
Being  has  expressed,  and  as  it  were  printed  his 
ideas  in  the  creation,  men  express  their  ideas 
in  books,  which  by  this  great  invention  of  these 
latter  ages  may  last  as  long  as  the  sun  and  moon, 
and  perish  only  in  the  general  wreck  of  nature. 
.  .  .  There  is.  no  other  method  of  fixing  those 
thoughts  which  arise  and  disappear  in  the  mind 
of  man,  and  transmitting  them  to  the  last  periods 
of  time  ;  no  other  method  of  giving  a  permanency 
to  our  ideas,  and  preserving  the  knowledge  of 
any  particular  person,  when  his  body  is  mixed 
with  the  common  mass  of  matter,  and  his  soul 
retired  into  the  world  of  spirits.  Books  are  the 
legacies  that  a  great,  genius  leaves  to  mankind, 
which  are  delivered  down  from  generation  to 
generation,  as  presents  to  the  posterity  of  those 
who  are  yet  unborn."  Herrick  wrote  to  a  friend 
whom  he  had  commemorated  in  verse ; 


The   True  Service  of  Reading,        199 

Looke  in  my  booke,  and  herein  see, 
Life  endless  sign'd  to  thee  and  me  ; 
We  o're  the  tombes  and  fates  shall  flje, 
While  other  generations  die. 

And  Spenser  sung  in  stately  lines : 

For  deeds  doe  die,  however  noblie  donna, 

And  thoughts  do  as  themselves  decay  ; 

But  wise  words,  taught  in  numbers  for  to  runne, 

Recorded  by  the  Muses,  live  for  ay  ; 

Ne  may  with  storming  showers  be  washt  away, 

Ne  bitter  breathing  windes  with  harmful!  blast, 

Nor  age,  nor  envie,  shall  them  ever  wast. 

Milton  said  in  his  noble  Areopagitica  (or  plea  for 
the  freedom  of  the  press) :  "  Books  are  not  abso- 
lutely dead  things,  but  do  contain  a  potency  of 
life  in  them  to  be  as  actiye  as  that  soul  was 
whose  progeny  they  are :  nay,  they  do  preserve 
as  in  a  vial  the  purest  efficacy  and  extraction  of 
that  living  intellect  that  bred  them.  I  know 
they  are  as  lively,  and  as  vigorously  productive 
as  those  fabulous  dragons'  teeth  ;  and  being  sown 
up  and  down,  may  chance  to  spring  up  armed 
men.  And  yet  on  the  other  hand,  unless  wariness 
be  used,  as  good  almost  kill  a  man  as  kill  a  good 
book ;  who  kills  a  man  kills  a  reasonable'crea- 
ture,  God's  image  ;  but  he  who  destroys  a  good 
book,  kills  reason  itself,  kills  the  image  of  God 
as  it  were  in  the  eye.  Many  a  man  lives  a  bur- 
den to  the  earth  ;  but  a  good  book  is  the  precious 


200  Tlie   Choice  of  Books, 

life-blood  of  a  master-spirit,  embalmed  and  treas- 
ured up  on  purpose  to  a  life  beyond  life 

We  should  be  wary,  therefore,  what  persecution 
we  raise  against  the  living  labors  of  public  men, 
how  we  spill  that  seasoned  life  of  man  preserved 
and  stc  red  up  in  books  ;  since  we  see  a  kind  of 
homicide  may  be  thus  committed,  sometimes  a 
martyrdom ;  and  if  it  extend  to  the  whole  im- 
pression, a  kind  of  massacre,  whereof  the  execu- 
tion ends  not  in  the  sla3dng  of  an  elemental  life, 
but  strikes  at  that  ethereal  and  fifth  essence,  the 
breath  of  reason  itself,  slays  an  immortality 
rather  than  a  life."  Richard  Baxter  thought  the 
written  word  more  powerful  than  the  spoken  one: 
"  Because  God  hath  made  the  excellent,  holy 
Avritings  of  his  servants  the  singular  blessing  of 
this  land  and  age ;  and  many  an  one  may  have  a 
good  book,  even  any  day  or  hour  of  the  week, 
that  cannot  at  all  have  a  good  preacher  ;  I  advise 
all  God's  servants  to  be  thankful  for  so  great  a 
mercy,  and  to  make  use  of  it,  and  be  much  in 
reading;  for  reading* with  most  doth  more  con- 
duce to  knowledge  than  hearing  doth,  because 
you  may  choose  what  subjects  and  the  most 
excellent  treatises  you  please  ;  and  may  be  often 
at  it,  and  may  peruse  again  and  again  what  you 
forget,  and  may  take  time  as  you  go  to  fix  it  on 


Tfie   True  Service  of  Reading,       201 

your  mind  ;  and  with  very  many  it  doth  more 
than  hearing  also  to  move  the  heart."  Coleridge 
compares  books  to  fruit-trees  :  -'Itis  saying  less 
than  the  truth  to  affirm  that  an  excellent  book 
(and  the  remark  holds  almost  equally  good  of  a 
Raphael  as  of  a  Milton),  is  like  a  well-chosen  and 
well  tended  fruit-tree.  Its  fruits  are  not  only  of 
one  season  only.  With  the  due  and  natural  in- 
tervals, we  may  recur  to  it  year  after  year,  and  it 
will  supply  the  same  nourishment  and  the  same 
gratification,  if  only  we  ourselves  return  to  it 
with  the  same  healthful  appetite."  James  I^ree- 
man  Clarke  closes  an  excellent  chapter  on  read- 
ing with  these  grave  words :  **  Let  us  thank  God 
for  books.  When  I  consider  what  some  books 
have  done  for  the  world,  and  what  they  are 
doing,  how  they  keep  up  our  hope,  awaken  new 
courage  and  faith,  soothe  pain,  give  an  ideal  life 
to  those  whose  homes  are  hard  and  cold,  bind 
together  distant  ages  and  foreign  lands,  create 
new  worlds  of  beauty,  bring  down  truths  from 
heaven — I  give  eternal  bles^mgs  for  this  gift,  and 
pray  that,  we  may  use  it  aright,  and  abuse  it 
never." 

Is  it  any  wonder,  then,  that  John  Lyly  gave 
his  son  this  advice:  "  My  good  son,  thou  art  to 
receive  by  my  death,  wealth,  and  by  my  counsel* 


202  The  Choice  of  Books, 

wisdom,  and  I  would  thou  wert  as  willing-  to 
imprint  the  one  in  thy  heart,  as  thou  wilt  be 
ready  to  bear  the  other  in  thy  purse  :  to  be  rich  is 
the  gift  of  fortune,  to  be  wise  the  grace  of  God. 
Have  more  mind  on  thy  books,  than  thy  -bags, 
more  desire  of  godliness  than  gold,  greater  affec- 
tion to  die  well,  than  to  live  wantonly."  "  The 
only  true  equalizers  in  the  world  are  books," 
says  Dr.  Langford ;  "  the  only  treasure-house 
open  to  all  comers  is  a  librar}'- ;  the  only  wealth 
w^hich  will  not  decay  is  knowledge  ;  the  only 
jewel  which  you  can  carry  beyond  the  grave  is 
w^isdom."  "  Books  are  the  best  of  things,  well 
used,"  says  Emerson  ;  "  abused,  among  the  worst. 
What  is  the  right  use  ?  What  is  the  one  end 
which  all  means  go  to  effect?  They  are  for 
nothing  but  to  inspire."  ''  In  any  choice  of  books," 
urges  James  Russell  Lowell,  "  always  remember 
what  Milton  said,  that  '  a  good  book  is  the  life- 
blood  of  a  master-spirit ;'  and  also  recall  the 
advice  of  Cato,  always  to  'keep  company  with 
the  good.' " 

In  a  word,  every  reader  may  well  bear  upon 
his  heart,  as  his  guide  toward  right  reading,  that 
motto  which  one  sometimes  sees  deeply  cut  in 
the  walls  of  old  churches :  "  Ad  majorem  Dei 
gloriam," — "  For  the  greater  glory  of  God," 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

Abbott,  L)Tnan,  cited 167 

About,  Edmond,  cited i6g 

Adams,  Jr.,  Charles  Francis,  cited 188 

Addison,  Joseph,  cited 198 

Alcott,  A.  Bronson,  cited 124 

Allibone,  S.  Austin,  cited 23 

Aristotle,  cited 112 

Arnold,  Matthew,  cited 34,  113 

Art  of  not  reading 64 

of  skipping .' 121 

Atkinson,  W.  P.,  cited 58,  90,  99,  112,  140 

Authors,  Greatness  of 102 

Bacon,  Francis,  cited 60,  99,  112,  122,  125 

Baxter,  Richard,  cited 200 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  cited 57,  88,  163 

Best  time  to  read  45 

Bible,  The,  cited 7,  99,  154 

Bibliotheque  Nationale  10 

Bindings,  Economical 180 

Blackwood's  Magazine,  cited 79 

Boardman,  S.  L.,  cited 179 

Bohn's  Librarj'  translations 130 

Books  and  diet  compared 100 

better  without  paper  covers 178 

Extent  of  their  production 10 

for  children — Congdon 170 


204  Index, 

PAGE 

Books,  Friendliness  of 22 

measured  by  serviceableness 32 

Nutrition  in 59 

of  reference 89 

Selected  list  of 33 

Selection  of,  for  libraries 190 

Treatment  of,  and  respect  for 180,  181 

Two  classes  of — Ruskin  and  Carlyle 29 

• What  books  to  own 163 

What  books  to  read 27 

Boswell,  James,  cited   173 

Braithwaite,  J.  B.,  cited 49,  60 

British  Museum 10 

Bui wer,  E.  Ly tton,  cited 95 

Burns,  Robert,  cited. .". , 10 

Butler,  Joseph,  cited 35 

Candor  of  opinion  commended 10 

Card-indexes  for  note-books 93 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  cited 29,  197 

Cato,  cited 202 

Channing,  William  Ellery,  cited 25 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  cited 167 

Children  and  books — Congdon 170 

Training  of 13 

Choice  of  time  for  reading 56 

Christian  Union,  cited 155 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  cited 201 

Classes  for  reading  aloud 159 

Classics  and  universities 136 

Clubs  and  reading  aloud 150 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  cited 60,  201 

Collyer,  Robert,  cited 19 

Commonplace-books,  Use  of 83 

Congdon,  Charles  T.,  cited 170 


Index.  205 


PAGE 

Cowper,  William,  cited 11 

Cramming  condemned 17 

Intellectual — Spencer 70 

Cultivation  of  taste 95 

Cutter,  Charles  A. ,  cited 187 

De  Quinc)%  Thomas,  cited 32 

Disraeli,  Isaac,  cited .- 8 

Durfee,  Charles  A.,  cited 92 

Economy  in  reading 47 

Education  and  libraries 187 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  cited 37, 102,  127,  130,  177,  202 

on  translations ; 130 

Fashion  a  foe  to  reading 55 

Feneion,  Archbishop,  cited 26 

Friendliness  of  books 22 

Fuller,  Thomas,  cited 90 

Germans  as  readers , 51 

Gibbon,  Edward,  cited 26,  173 

Goschen,  G.  J.,  cited 114 

Hale,  Edward  Everett,  cited 18,  66,  160,  190 

Hamerton,  Philip  G.,  cited..  .47,  51,  52,  54,  79,  126, 131,  138,  144 

Harrison,  Frederick,  cited 35.  37,  39,  6i 

Helps,  Sir  Arthur,  cited 168 

Herrick,  Robert,  cited 198 

Herschel,  Sir  John,  cited 24 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  cited 168 

Home  libraries 173,178 

Homer,  Estimate  of 41,  44 

Homes,  H.  A.,  cited 191 

Homes  with  and  without  books 165 

Hovey,  W.  A.,  cited 87 

How  much  to  read 57 

to  read  periodicals 139 

Hugo,  Victor,  cited 103 


2o6  Index, 


PAGR 

Hypocrisy  in  literature io8 

Idle  habits  of  reading 49,  50 

Imagination,  Cultivation  of no 

Indexing  of  note-books 93 

Intellectual  compensation — Hamerton 54 

cramming — Spencer 70 

Interruptions  in  reading 53 

Jacquemont,  Victor,  cited 51 

Johnson,   Samuel,  cited 46,  173,  178 

and  "backs  of  books  " 173 

Journalism,  Literary  side  of 146 

Keats,  John,  cited ig6 

Lamb,  Charles,  cited 175 

Langford,  Dr.  J.  A.,  cited 174,  202 

Libraries  in  homes 176 

Location  of 191 

mentioned 10 

public.  Use  of 182 

Library  Journal,  cited 189,  191 

Literary  World,  cited 67,  100 

Locke,  John,  cited ., 58 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  cited 202 

Luther,  Martin,  cited 69 

Lyly,  John,  cited 201 

McCosh,  Dr.,  cited 8 

Magazines,  Reading  of 141 

Memories,  Diversities  of— Newman 82 

Memor}%  Defective— Hamerton 79 

in  reading — Porter 77 

Milton,  John,  cited 9,  63,  199,  202 

Motive  of  reading 7 

Newman,  Cardinal,  cited 82 

Newspapers  as  transient  literature 74 

Note-books,  Indexing  of — Durfee ,0- 93 


Index.  207 

PAGE 

Note-books  of  Alcott"and  Emerson 87,  88 

U se  of 83 

Nutrition  in  books 59 

Obscurity  in  poetry 115 

Pattison,  Mark,  cited 75 

Payn,  James,  cited   106 

Pendleton,  A.  M.,  cited 191 

Periodicals,  How  to  read 138 

recommended  by  F.  B.  Perkins 140 

Perkins,  F.  B. ,  cited 10,  140 

Petrarch,  cited ". 23,  61 

Poetr)^,  Chapter  on no 

Obscurity  in 115 

Reading  of — Atkinson 112 

Porter,  Noah,  cited 77,  78,  98,  no,  113,  142,  195 

Potter,  Bishop,  cited .  .  .9,  68,  98, 149 

Quick,  R.  H.,  cited 73 

Read  not  too  much  at  a  time 67 

Reading  aloud  and  reading  clubs   149 

Art  of  not 64 

Best  time  for 45 

Economy  in 47 

Habit,  The I2 

How  much  to  read 57 

made  attractive 17 

Motive  of 7 

of  poetry — Atkinson Ii2 

Rules  of — R.  W.  Emerson 28 

Taste  for 24 

True  service  of ...   195 

Reed,  William  B.,  cited 88 

Remembering  what  one  reads 76 

Re-reading 69 

Ruskin,  John,  cited ,..  ....17,  29,  167 


2o8  Index. 


PAGE 

Saturday  Review,  cited i ig 

Schopenhauer,  Arthur,  cited  63 

Scudder,  Horace  E.,  cited 145 

Self-training  18 

Shairp,  Principal,  cited 116 

Shakespeare,  cited 28 

Sham  admiration  in  literature — Payn 106 

Shelley,  Percy  B.,  cited 113 

Simcox,  Edith,  cited  16 

Skipping,  Art  of 121 

Spencer,  Herbert,  cited   13,  70 

Spenser,  Edmund,  cited igg 

Stedman,  E.  C,  cited. 12 

Stewart,  Dugald,  cited 58 

Taste,  Cultivation  of 95 

for  reading 26 

Thoreau,  Henry  David,  cited 29 

Time,  The  best,  for  reading 45 

Town  libraries "^^ 192,  194 

Translations,  Use  of 129 

True  service  of  reading 195 

Use  of  note-books 83 

of  public  libraries 182 

of  translations F29 

Waller,  William,  cited 24 

Ware,  Mary  C,  cited 47 

What  books  to  own 163 

to  read 27 

Whately,  Bishop,  cited  125 

White,  Richard  Grant,  cited .149 

Women,  Literary  work  for 155 

Wordsworth's  purity  of  style  117 

Wittenbach,  Daniel,  cited 46 


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